[091] Blog
Day 2007 (08/31/2007) This is Blog Day in Hong Kong
where a blogger is supposed recommend five blogs to others. Since this
blog is theoretically based in Hong Kong (even though the coverage is more
about Greater China), I recommend five Chinese-language Hong Kong blogs that
may not be on your 'must-read' list yet. Please bear in mind that
these are additions on top of the regular 'must-reads' and therefore nobody
should feel bad about not being named.

都是那些日子
This Apple Daily reporter covers the political beat and tells us about
personal feelings that cannot be expressed under the fair and balanced
practice that the newspaper requires.

袁彌明
Erica's blog
People would like to think that this former Miss Hong Kong contestant (and
loser) Erica Yuen is just a Book B (entertainment) personality for Next
Weekly, but she has just been turned into a Book A (current affairs/serious
commentary) personality last week. Whether you like her or not, it is
a good thing that an entertainment personality could have independent
thinking and stick to her position.

這雙手雖然小
According to this Hong Kong Economic Daily columnist: "The writer Yi
Shu wrote: a woman must first obtain economic independence before she is
qualified to discuss what else she can fight for. Between the age of
15 and 25, I sought the opportunity to study and travel; between 25 and 35,
I worked hard, continued to study, formed a family, began to save money ...
I had to remain optimistic and not mind the tedium of life ... although
these hands are tiny, they are mine. I created results which I enjoy
and I am happy."

肥醫生@西九龍貧民區
The title of the blog is "Fat Doctor at the West Kowloon poor people's
district." This explains that the blogger is a doctor at a public
hospital serving people with low incomes. Necessarily, the blogger
provides viewpoints that reflect certain grassroots views that are not
otherwise represented proportionately in mainstream media.

大力灰狗
This blog has been silent lately due to personal problems. However,
this is the absolutely 'go-to' blog for all local election analyses in Hong
Kong. The blogger should to work as a political aide and is therefore
familiar with the local political scene at a level that armchair newspaper
commentators and political bloggers cannot hope to match.

[090] Ayawawa
Jumps From Speeding Train (08/31/2007) (Daqi)
This story began with a CCTV documentary program titled "The Secrets of
the Direct Sales Industry Exposed." In the program, a young woman
named XX went to become a direct saleswoman. Her parents found her and
dragged her on a train to go home. But she jumped out of the window of
the speeding train and killed herself.

The CCTV program then showed three photographs of the young woman.
These photographs were blurred in order to conceal the identity of XX.

So what? That is until a sharp-eyed netizen noticed that these
photographs appeared identical to ones of the Internet personality
"Ayawawa", who is alive and well.

What does CCTV have to say for itself? Nothing so far. All the
sarcastic barbs come from the netizens ("CCTV is so CCTV-like in this
affair").

[089] Japanese
Ninja Defeats Shaolin Monk (08/31/2007) (Southern
Metropolis Daily) On August 25, Chinese netizen "Five
Minutes Each Day 每天五分钟"
published a post titled: "Japanese Iga clan ninja challenges Shaolin
temple; the monks were defeated and they can no longer claim to the leader
in the martial arts community" at the history section of the Tiexue
forum. In the post, a Japanese ninja named Yamamoto Arakawa had been
practising in the hills for more than thirty years. In order to prove
himself, he goes around challenging others and he has never been
defeated. Then he saw a Jet Li movie and learned about the Shaolin
Temple. On August 11, he came to the Shaolin Temple at Songshan and
issued a challenge. On August 25, he fought and defeated the head
martial monk named Shi Yan. Yamamoto Arakawa said that he would return
in five years and he hoped that the Shaolin martial monks would be better.

This prankish post would have just been a joke within a small
community. But the media picked it up, and the local newspapers
interviewed the Shaolin Temple leaders and reported on it. Yesterday,
the legal advisor for the Shaolin Temple denounced the action of "Five
Minutes Each Day" which was an characterized as an "extremely
irresponsible act not just to the Shaolin Temple and its monks, but to the
Chinese martials arts community and the entire Chinese people."
He demanded "Five Minutes Each Day" to make a public apology to
the people of China, or else they would pursue legal responsibility.
While "Five Minutes Each Day" has deleted the post and replaced it
with an apology, other netizens were not amused at the strong-armed
tactics. One netizen wrote "It was just a prank and you took it
seriously and demand an apology to the entire Chinese people? What
have you been eating?" Another netizen also issued a "solemn
announcement": "Please do not represent the Chinese people so
easily. I for one disgree."

[088] Hong
Kong By The Numbers (08/31/2007) (Ming
Pao; Yahoo)
CPPCC and DAB member Jasper Tsang wonders about the questions asked in the
series of polls conducted by the Hong Kong University Public Opinion
Programme about the political reform proposals. The phrasing of the
questions has changed over time, and Jasper Tsang believes that they look
like leading questions that are designed to achieve a result in a particular
direction.

Here are those relevant questions and poll results that Ming Pao noted:

(6/25/2007) (HKU
POP)It is proposed that a sort of prior vetting
mechanism would be added to the Chief Executive election to secure the
acceptance of candidates by the Central government. Then the Chief Executive
would be elected by the public on a "one-person-one-vote" basis.
Do you support or oppose to this kind of prior vetting mechanism?45%: Support
18%: Half-half
25%: Oppose
11%: Don't know/hard to say

(7/9/2007) (HKU
POP)It is proposed that a sort of prior vetting
mechanism would be added to the Chief Executive election to secure the
acceptance of candidates by the Central government. However, some other
holds another view that no prior vetting mechanism should be introduced as
this would eliminate the real competition in the election. Which view are
you more inclined to?39%: Inclined to adding some
prior vetting mechanism to secure the acceptance of candidates by the
Central government
44%: Inclined not to introducing prior vetting mechanism for a real
competition in the election.
2%: Agree to both
2%: Neither of them
13%: Don't know/hard to say

(7/30/2007) (HKU
POP)Some people hold the view a prior vetting mechanism should be added to
the Chief Executive election to secure the acceptance of candidates by the
Central government. However, some hold another view that no prior vetting
mechanism is needed because the Basic Law has already stipulated that CE had
to be appointed by the Central government and is responsible to it, thus
securing Central Government's endorsement of the candidates. Which view are
you more inclined to support?44%: Inclined to support prior vetting mechanism
42% :Inclined to support no prior vetting mechanism
1%: Agree to both
3%: Neither of them
11%: Don't know/hard to say

(8/13/2007) (HKU
POP)Article 45 of the Basic Law states that "CE shall be selected by
universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating
committee in accordance with democratic procedures". On what standard
do you think that the democratic procedures should be defined? 4 standards
will be listed as follows. Please evaluate each in terms of their
importance.

1) To guarantee that the election on the whole is a truly democratic
election84%: Important
7%: Half-half
5%: Not important
4%: Don't know/hard to say2) To ensure all candidates supported by Hong Kong people can participate
in the election77%: Important
10%: Half-half
9%: Not important
4%: Don't know/hard to say3) To ensure that the nominating procedure comply with
internationally-recognized standards75%: Important
11%: Half-half
9%: Not important
5%: Don't know/hard to say4) To vet out candidates not accepted by central government47%: Important
13%: Half-half
35%: Not important
5%: Don't know/hard to say

So, if you support 'vetting,' you cite the June 25th poll that has 45% + 18%/2 =
54% support. If you do not support 'vetting,' you cite the August 13th
poll. Everybody gets what they want.

[087] Taiwan
By The Numbers (08/30/2007) (TVBS)
(1,078 persons age 20 or over in Taiwan interviewed August 24-28, 2007
between 18:30-22:00. The sample of telephone numbers was drawn from
the telephone directory and then the last four digits were randomized to
make the calls).

Q1: Are you satisfied/dissatisfied with the performance of President Chen
Shui-bian?
The chart shows the historical popularity of President Chen Shui-bian.
The latest numbers in the aftermath of the recent visit of Central America are: 18%
satisfied and 65% dissatisfied.

[086] The
Reading List (08/30/2007) From yesterday's Beijing
News, the General Administration of Press and Publications has
banned 40 pornographic novels and 348 mainland Chinese websites. There
was an <Emergency Notice to Seriously Investigate and Sanction
Pornographic Stories on the Internet>.

40 pornographic novels? Which are they? How many giving me a
list of titles so that I can read them? After all, these novels must
be available on any number of overseas websites.

Today, Hong Kong's Ming
Pao cited the Beijing News news story (which did not list the novel
titles) but was able to come up with a partial list:江湖淫娘
The Promiscuous Woman of Martial Arts
紅樓綺夢 The
Wet Dream of the Red Mansion
不良少女日記
The Diary of a Bad Girl
東北風情熟女之惑
The Temptation of the Mature Woman from the Northeast
我的性啟蒙老師
The Teacher of My Sexual Initiation
倚天屠龍別記
The Heaven Sword and the Dragon Sabre: The Other Story
神雕外傳之郭襄
The Return of the Condor Hero: The Other Story of Guo Xiang

If you punch these titles into Google, you will find hundreds of thousands
of links, inside and outside of China.

But wait ... according to Southern
Metropolis Daily, the reporter checked the titles of these 40 novels
at Baidu and Google.cn and found that they have been completely
'disappeared.' Here is the list:

江湖淫娘
红楼绮梦
骆冰淫传
夫妇乐园
阿里布达年代记
爱神之传奇
不良少女日记
沧澜曲
创世之子猎艳之旅
东北风情熟女之惑
风骚侍女·海盗的悠闲生活
黑天使
黑星女侠
混蛋神风流史
狡猾的风水相师
狂风暴雨
俪影蝎心
梦中的女孩
秦青的幸福生活
四海龙女
逃亡艳旅
我的性启蒙老师
现代艳帝传奇
星光伴我淫
倚天屠龙别记
淫术炼金士
十景缎
往事追忆录
舌战法庭
少妇白洁
风月大陆
风尘劫
美少妇的哀羞
阿兵哥言语录
遥想当年春衫薄
王子淫传
神雕外传之郭襄
睡着的武神
少年阿宾
According to The
Sun, 共和國二○四九
(The Republic 2049) is listed too. The short summary is: On the
opening day of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian
pronounced Taiwan independence and the People's Liberation Army immediately
attacked Taiwan. Is this "obscene pornography"?
Actually, this is a misrepresentation of "The Republic 2049"
because there was only a brief mention about 2008 and the real story was
about the Japanese invasion (backed by USA) of the united Korea (backed by
China) in the year 2049. So The Sun was probably referring to a prior
list of banned novels that included many military warfare titles.

The Southern Metropolis Daily
reporter also noted that many of the banned looks in the two previous lists
(15 and 45 respectively) can still be found at the search engines. The
reporter also noted that one of the weaker areas in enforcing the ban is
mobile phone downloads. For example, books such as 少年阿宾
(Young Man A-bin) is one of the most popular titles at some electronic book
websites.

[085] The
Most Humorous Website Of The Year (08/29/2007) The title went
to Hangzhou Information Net for "The
Nude Town Party Secretary Dropped Dead While On Duty". On
August 25, the website declared that it had been subjected to bandit-style
law enforcement as 13 computers and 1 server were hauled away by the
authorities. This caused some netizens to remark that the website had
finally been subjected to retaliation for that famous series of reports and
notices.

According to the Hangzhou Information Net principal Fan Bin, the Ministry of
Industry and Commerce people came and removed the equipment on the grounds
that he was running an unlicensed Internet cafe. But Fan said that his
facility was used for computer training for which he had obtained a business
license as early as 1998. "I offer computer training here.
I do not accept adults. I only teach computer skills to
children. I won't even let them play games."

The reporter visited the Ministry of Industry and Commerce. The
enforcement team leader said that Fan Bin was running an illegal Internet
cafe. He said that Fan had set up his Internet cafe inside his own
home. "We asked him to stop, but he refuses to pay heed.
There is a steel door and a surveillance camera at the place. When we
knock on the door, he does not open it. We couldn't get
in." He also said that the raid had nothing to do with Hangzhou
Information Net. The raid was triggered by a citizen complaint
forwarded from the city mayor's office.

The reporter also visited the Ministry of Culture. The enforcement
team leader said that they were out there to deal with an illegal Internet
cafe, and he did not even realize that Fan Bin ran the Hangzhou Information
Net. He explained that local parents are unhappy with the illegal
Internet cafes. "According to state regulations, minors are not
allowed in Internet cafes. Fan Bin's place specialized in serving
minors. He says that this is computer training, but they were playing
online games. The ongoing rate at licensed Internet cafes is 2 yuan
per hour, but Fan Bin charges 3.5 to 4 yuan per hour. How can he
charge so much higher? That is because we are very strict in our
monitoring. The minors cannot go to the licensed Internet cafes and so
they can only go to his illegal Internet cafe. If this was a computer
training class, then how come the parents don't know about it? When we
made the raid, the parents came along and they were so angry. They
wanted to punish their children right then and there, but we stopped
them." The leader also said that his department is not concerned
about Hangzhou Information Net: "I think websites are free to publish
whatever they want. At the worst, the family members of the persons
named in the article may sue the website. It is none of our
business."

The reporter also interviewed some of the parents and children. A
junior high school student said that he was referred there by other students
and he went there principally to play online games.

Meanwhile, the Hangzhou Information Net remains online.

P.S. The reporter also interviewed Fan Bin about the "nude official
dead in line of duty" episode. Fan Bin explained that he had
hired Zhang Yang to lift visitor traffic. This job did not carry a
salary, but Zhang could draw a commission based upon the traffic
volume. Fan said, "Zhang Yang does not come into the
office. He has his own computer. We share the same
administrator's account and he did everything by himself." During
the affair, traffic soared at Hangzhou Information Net as each of those
items drew tens of thousands of hits. Fan said that Zhang thought he
was doing well and therefore he wanted to get paid. But Fan said that
they did not have any advertising revenue yet and therefore refused.
The two had a quarrel and Zhang Yang went his own way. Fan said that
the local police are looking for Zhang Yang.

[084] Beijing
Courtroom Drama (08/29/2007) (Beijing
Times) In April 2005, the 6-year-old son of the Han family was
strangled by the 13-year-old son of the Zhang family. The court sent
the murderer to three years of educational reform and also imposed more than
150,000 yuan in compensation from the Zhang family to the Han family.
However, the Zhang family never paid a cent. On November 25 last year,
the mother of the dead boy poured acid on the eldest daughter of the Zhang
family. At the court trial, the mother was sentenced to 13 years in
prison and fined more than 360,000 yuan to the victim.

During the proceedings, the Zhang father was glaring at the Han
mother. Afterwards, he wagged his finger at her and roared: "Do
you have any humanity? Why did you not come after me? Why did
you victimize my daughter? Are you sorry now?" She quivered
as she said: "If the judge asked me if I am sorry, then I am
sorry. But if you ask me, then I will never be sorry! I want you
to look at your daughter every day and suffer the rest of your life!"

The father then explained to the reporter that the daughter has been staying
home locked inside her own room. So far, they have borrowed more than
70,000 yuan for medical treatment. He also explained that he was
willing to pay the compensation to the Han family but he was only trying to
do it slowly.

At that point, the female judge who had removed her judge's robe was
outraged by what the father said. She said: "How come you did not
ever pay a single cent? Doesn't your family still own two
cars?" The father said, "If you say that, then you are
biased? Was she right to splash acid?" The judge said:
"When you say that, you better examine your own conscience!"
This caused the father to yell at the judge: "If you dare, you can
release her!" After the father left, the judge calmed down and
said: "After I took the judge's robe off, I am just an ordinary
citizen. But I was really infuriated!" The judge said that
their investigation showed that the Zhang family was not as poor as the
father made out, to the point where they could not afford to pay a single
cent.

Q1. People are saying that the following people are likely to run in the
Hong Kong Island Legislative Council by-election. Who do you support?45%: Regina Ip (Savantas Think Tank)
21%: Cyd Ho (independent)
10%: Raymond Wong (League of Social Democrats)
3%: Kam Nai-wai (Democratic Party)
21%: Undecided/don't know

the pan-democrat leadesrs are sitting down to discuss their primary election
criteria.
The problem here is a multi-dimensional one -- the candidate should have
name recognition, local organization and community support. None of
the listed pan-democratic candidates have all three attributes. The
ones with the name recognition have no local organizations behind them,
while the ones with the local organizations are unknown to the general
public.

(Ming Pao)
In yesterday's meeting, Lo Wing-lok of the League of Social Democrats
produced a surprise when he said that no more time should be spent on
discussing the primary election. Instead, he said that he would
support a Democratic Party candidate because that party has better local
organizations. Ming Pao said that there are three speculations on Lo's
motives: (1) He would rather not have Cyd Ho be the candidate; (2) He knew
that Democratic Party's Kam Nai-wai has little chance of winning, so he is
shining the light on Kam in order to expose his weakness; (3) the League of
Social Democrats has not decided on a candidate, so he would rather not have
to fight against the better known chairman Raymond Wong of his own
party. Cyd Ho reminded everyone that the most important thing in this
by-election is not to let Regina Ip win: "Or else she is going to use
the results of the by-election to show that she has the popular backing to
participate in the 2012 Chief Executive election by the small circle of
electors."

(Apple
Daily) Apart from loyalty, the requirements of the central
government about the Chief Executive are capability, familarity with
government operations and popularity. Regina Ip has shown her loyalty
during the Article 23 episode. She was an Administrative Officer,
rising to become Secretary for Security. Therefore, she knows
government operations. The only remaining issue is her
popularity. If she wins the Hong Kong Island Legco seat in spite of
the golden rule of 60:40 support for the pan-democrats there, she will have
met all the requirements. Even more so, she will have shown that she
knows how to run and win elections. That is something that the other
two most likely ("to be anointed") candidates Chief Secretary
Henry Tang and Finance Secretary John Tsang do not have.

(Those Were
The Days) It is sad that everybody believes that Regina Ip
will win this by-election. Are Hong Kong people so forgetful?
Are they so forgiving? Who was the person who ignored the popular
opinion against Article 23? Who was the high and mighty person
lecturing the opposing scholars, professionals and the masses? You may
say that she had no choice as the Security for Security. But how come
the other secretaries do not ignore public opinion like she does? If
Regina Ip gets into the Legislative Council via direct election, then it
must be as she said when she was selling Article 23 that even Adolf Hitler
was elected democratically ... Therefore, if I have a vote, I will
definitely not vote for Regina Ip. I am afraid that if Regina Ip gets
elected this time, we will have many more Regina Ip's the next time.
We must use our votes to tell the politicians and the political parties that
people like Regina Ip should not fantasize about getting citizen support!

The place is Mianyang (Sichuan) and the time is midnight on August 21.
Three militia policemen were on the lookout for prostitution
activities. They went to the home of citizen Ms. Zheng and her
husband. Ms. Zheng is a candidate in a model citizen contest. At
that hour, Ms. Zheng and her husband were sound asleep in their bed.

The three policemen did not knock because they wanted to catch the criminals
by surprise. So they pried open the door quietly. Then they
marched into the bedroom and the first famous sentence was:

"Don't move, turn the lights on."

Unfortunately, there are two orders to the criminal suspects in this one
sentence: one, don't move; two, turn the lights on. How does one turn
the light on without moving? Alas, there is no explanation.

Somehow, the light was turned on, and the second thing that the policemen
said was:

"We are militia policemen from the Chengxiang police station.
Please come down to the police station with us immediately."

Thus, the three policemen broke into a private home, found a couple in bed
and treated them as a prostitute and her client without asking a single
question. Ms. Zheng asked the three policemen to show proof of
identity and also explained that the man next to her was her husband.
She questioned whether they were doing something wrong. Then came the
third sentence:

"This is none of your business."

The original forum post was actually written in humor. For example,
the commentary on the last sentence was: "This sentence was succinct
and accurate. It has always been the case that the militia police are
in charge of the people and nobody has heard of the people being in charge
of the militia police. Therefore, 'This is none of your business' is
aptly used to reflect the reality. How dare citizens mind the business
of the militia police? If citizens starts minding, would there be
chaos in the world? And then what happens to the harmonious
society?"

It was mentioned in passing that the police station chief went down to the
home of Ms. Zheng to deliver an apology in person afterwards.

[081] Taiwan
By The Numbers (08/27/2007) (United
Daily News, from the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and
Statistics, Executive Yuan)

If the 7.3 million households in Taiwan are divided into ten strata based
upon the size of their annual income, then the lowest decile has an annual
income of less than NT$320,000 while the top decile has an annual income
greater than NT$1,630,000. The ratio of top to bottom is 5.25.

Q1. From the state secret funds case to Ma Ying-jeou's special fees case
to Frank Hsieh's political contributions case, do you have confidence
in the investigation by the prosecutors?41%: Have confidence
59%: Have no confidence

Q2. Political figures often criticize that when the prosecutor
investigate these cases, its means "politics has entered the
judiciary." Do you agree with that?65%: Yes
27%: No
8%: Don't know/no opinion

Q3. Generally speaking, do you support the prosecutors investigating the
corruption of political figures?81%: Yes
13%: No
6%: Don't know/no opinion

Q4. As a result of the prosecutors investigation the aforementioned
cases, will your vote be influenced?37%: Yes
60%: No
3%: Don't know/no opinion

[079] Hong
Kong By The Numbers (08/27/2007) (Ming
Pao; also at Yahoo
News) (1,376 persons interviewed August 23-26 via automated
computer voice; of these, 289 were Hong Kong Island registered voters who
were asked about their support of various potential candidates in the Hong
Kong Island Legislative Council by-election)

Q1. People are saying that the following people are likely to run in the
Hong Kong Island Legislative Council by-election. Who do you support?45%: Regina Ip (Savantas Think Tank)
21%: Cyd Ho (independent)
10%: Raymond Wong (League of Social Democrats)
3%: Kam Nai-wai (Democratic Party)
21%: Undecided/don't know

Q2. If the race was between Regina Ip and Cyd Ho, who would you support?50%: Regina Ip
34%: Cyd Ho
16%: Undecided/don't know
[Note: Ming Pao's poll of August 10-13 showed Regina Ip at 43% and Cyd Ho at
38%.]

Q3. If the race was between Regina Ip and Raymond Wong, who would you
support?56%: Regina Ip
30%: Raymond Wong
14%: Undecided/don't know

[078] Chinese
Netizen Detained For Plotting "Illegal Assembly"
(08/26/2007) (Southern
Metropolis Daily) Recently, the Beijing police came across
this Internet post: "Housing prices are so high nowadays. I
propose all comrades who are distressed by the high housing prices assemble
on month X day X at location X to protesting against the inflated housing
prices. The more people show up, the impact will be the greater and it
will more likely draw the attention of the government." This
forum poster also asked other netizens many times to forward this post
through other forums, blogs, MSN, QQ groups, email and SMS.

The Beijing police located the individual named Yue who was a graduate
students and is presently working at the Beijing office of a Shanghai
company. On August 22, the police invoked the section of <Security
Administrative Penalties> about incitement of illegal assembly and
demonstration and placed Yue under 14 days of administrative
detention. Yue said, "Housing prices are so high nowadays and I
don't have money. Therefore, the post was a way of showing how I
really feel. I did not imagine tht the consequences would be so
serious."

[077] False
Advertising? (08/26/2007) (Apple
Daily) This week, the Central Park Towers in Tin Shui Wai
opened for sales, and the newspapers are blanketed with
advertisements. One of the print ads claims that Central Park Towers
is next to the KCR West line and it is only 10 minutes to get to Shenzhen
from the Lok Ma Chau line. There is the picture of a state-of-the-art
train in the manner of the 'bullet train' in Japan.

It is alleged that this advertisement is misleading. A KCR
spokesperson said that it takes 6 minutes to go from Lok Ma Chau to Sheung
Shui. "I have no idea what the 10 minutes refers to. Maybe
they are running a helicopter shuttle service to Tin Shui Wai. But
since we don't know what they are referring to, we cannot claim that they
are misquoting KCR information."

The Consumer Council spokesperson said, "This print ad used the train
as the point of focus, but the picture does not come from Tin Shui
Wai. This ad is problematic. It is misleading." But
there are presently no regulations on print advertisements (except for
medical and health products).

[076] Yet
Another Mass Incident At Shanwei (08/26/2007) (Ming
Pao) In 2005, there was a mass incident in Dongzhou (Shanwei)
during which the armed police fired and killed villagers demonstrating over
the construction of an electricity plant. On August 24, another mass
incident took place when almost 2,000 villagers demonstrated against the
construction of high-voltage electricity pylons on farmland. The
government sent out almost 1,000 police officers with 5 armored
vehicles. The villagers threw rocks at the police and used poles and
hoes to fight. The police fired a large number of tear gas canisters
to disperse the demonstrators. About six or seven villagers were
injured. The police and the construction workers withdrew from the
scene at around noon.

According to a villager, it has been tense at Dongzhou since the first mass
incident in 2005 when the government took land away from the villagers
without compensation. Clashes occurred whenever construction took
place. The electricity plant is almost finished. Ever since the
serious negative impact of the 2005 mass incident in which villagers were
killed, the government has tried not to participate directly in protecting
the plant. Instead, the plant has hired gangsters. In March and
April this year, villagers who tried to stop the construction were attacked
by gangsters.

78.8%: customer stated that he will not use condom during price negotiation
41.6%: customer removed condom secretly during intercourse
40.7%: customer refused to use condom during intercourse
25.7%: customer forced intercourse of a form that consent was not given to
(e.g. anal penetration)
18.6%: customer refused to pay after intercourse
14.2%: customer robbed the sex worker
13.3%: customer used violence
13.3%: self-proclaimed policeman threatened/blackmailed

[074] Receiver
Operating Characteristic (08/25/2007) What can this
engineering talk be about? From Wikipedia,

Let us consider a two-class prediction
problem (binary classification), in which the outcomes are labeled either as
positive (p) or negative (n) class. There are four possible
outcomes from a binary classifier. If the outcome from a prediction is p
and the actual value is also p, then it is called a true positive
(TP); however if the actual value is n then it is said a false
positive (FP). Conversely, a true negative has occurred when both
the prediction outcome and the actual value are n, and false
negative is when the prediction outcome is n while the actual
value is p.

Reporters Without Borders criticized the
Chinese government for what the press advocacy group considers a move to end
anonymous blogging in the communist country. The government, through
the Internet Society of China, recently drafted a pact that was signed by at
least 20 major blog service providers in the country, including Yahoo Inc.
and Microsoft Corp., the Paris-based watchdog group said Thursday.
"The pact stops short [of] the previous project of making it obligatory
for bloggers to register, but it can be used to force service providers to
censor content and identify bloggers," the group said in a statement.
The pact, unveiled Wednesday, signals an "imminent" new wave of
censorship and repression, the group said.

...

Microsoft, in an e-mail statement on
Friday, acknowledged that on Aug. 21, MSN China, a joint venture with
Shanghai Alliance Investment Ltd., signed the document, which it says is
"in line" with similar agreements adopted by other countries and
organizations. "Such self-regulatory codes are an effective means
of helping to protect our customers from cybercrimes and other threats to
online security and privacy, and to promoting a safe, friendly environment
in which to enjoy our services," the statement reads. Although it
signed the document, Microsoft doesn't agree with some of its
recommendations, such as requiring people to register with their real names
for the company's Windows Live Spaces blog hosting and publishing
service. "It should be emphasized that these are indeed
recommendations only, and we retain discretion to determine how to best
achieve the overarching goals of the agreement," Microsoft said.

The pact "encourages" blog
service providers to require that people provide their real names and
contact information in order to let them post blogs, and then store the
individuals' information, the press advocacy group said. The pact also
says blog service providers should "monitor and manage comments"
as well as delete "illegal and bad information," according to
Reporters Without Borders. In its statement, the group quotes Internet
Society of China Secretary General Huang Chengqing as saying: "Blog
service providers who allow the use of pseudonyms may be more attractive to
bloggers, but they will be punished by the government if they fail to screen
illegal information."

In its statement, Microsoft said that
government actions taken to address security, safety and other concerns, and
which impact free expression and privacy "should be taken with
deliberation and restraint." Ultimately, through international
dialogue, Microsoft supports the establishment of consistent "national
actions" and the development of a set of principles to guide Internet
companies providing services worldwide. "To this end, Microsoft
has joined with a diverse group of companies, academics, investors,
technology leaders and human rights organizations to seek solutions to the
free expression and privacy challenges faced by technology and
communications companies doing business internationally," the statement
reads.

US Internet giants Yahoo and MSN confirmed
that they had signed a code of conduct for their blogging operations in
China that committed them to protecting the interests of the Chinese state.
Yahoo, Microsoft's MSN and other blog providers in China this week signed
the "self-discipline" pact, under which they pledged to
"safeguard state and public interests," according to a statement
from the China Internet Society. The pact "encourages" the
Internet firms to register the real names, addresses and other personal
details of the bloggers, and then keep this information. The firms
also committed to delete any "illegal or bad messages", according
to a copy of the pact posted on the society's website. Along with sex
and violence, China's communist rulers have also deemed that opinions
critical of it or the spreading of democratic ideology are not allowed.

Yahoo China and MSN told AFP they had
signed the pact, but did not give any further comment. "I can
confirm that we signed the pact this week," Yahoo China's Beijing-based
spokesman Dou Xiaohan said. MSN China spokesman Feng Jinhu said:
"We've signed the pact but there is no press release on that. On your
other questions, we will get back to you as soon as possible."

That is how one side interpreted the
actions. Meanwhile, here are some things that the Chinese media reported
this week:

- Typhoon Sepat hits Xiamen (Fujian); 63 workers from big Internet
company are missing! Note: This was fabricated by the promotional
people at this Internet company in order to make their company name better
known all over the world (see Comment
200708#072).

- "Do not use toothpicks in
restaurants! Recently, a group of AIDS patients have been dabbing
toothpicks with their blood in restaurants and then replacing them in the
box for the purpose of spreading the disease. Please be careful!"
(see Comment 200708#065).

- "Students will be shot at the XX
middle school in Suzhou and the casualty count will be worse than that at
Virginia Tech." (see Comment
200708#065).

If this is a battle for the hearts and minds
of the Chinese netiziens, they will overwhelmingly choose for the government
to track down the individuals that disseminated the rumors listed above and
punish the perpetrators in accordance with the law. Do you believe that
Google, MSN and Yahoo should refuse to turn over the relevant user information
in the name of freedom of expression?

Since May 2007, the Chinese government
initiated a joint campaign against pornographic websites and began to
require websites and bulletin board systems to register. All
unregistered websites were to be shut down. Trials were conducted in
the cities of Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Henan and Guangdong. On July
25, there was a notice to the effect that "website registration will
begin across China based upon the experience from the trials."

According to the regulations, website
registration occurs with the Ministry of Information Industry whereas BBS
registration occurs at the provincial-level Telecommunications
Administration Bureaus. The local public security bureaus will issue
their own administrative policies. In Guangdong and elsewhere, the
public security bureau has issued notice that all unregistered forums will
have their servers confiscated. The webmasters are protesting that the
requirements for BBS registration are too demanding -- "real-name
registration," "24-hour monitoring," "standalone
servers" and so on will practically kill off all personal
websites. Furthermore, the review period is so long that nobody can
make it. When Asia Weekly called the Shanghai Telecommunications
Bureau about the estimated time for BBS registration, the response was that
it was not possible to provide an estimate because their bosses have not
clued them.

According to the Internet administrative
regulations in China, Bulletin Board Systems refer to not just community
forums, electronic notice boards and comments board, but they also include
blogs with comment functions as well as chat rooms. Williamlong.info
(the "Moonlight blog") is a personal blog that discusses Internet
technology, including contents about "breaking through the Great Fire
Wall." The Shenzhen public security bureau had asked the blogger
Mr. Long to delete certain posts as well as invited him to "drink
tea." The Internet Supervisory Bureau told Mr. Long that there is
a fine of 5,000 RMB for an unregistered BBS, and he had better have a registered
"Internet safety worker." This Internet safety worker will
have to trained at a designated organization and issued a certificate for
the grand sum of 660 yuan. Furthermore, he would have to purchase the
appropriate Internet surveillance and administrative software ... so it
seemed that website registration goes beyond administrative issues into
revenue generation for the executive department. Mr. Long had no
choice but to move his website overseas, and he has a lot less trouble as a
result.

Since July, there are many forum posts that
recognize the difficulty of website registration in China and therefore
present the experience of overseas hosting. The American companies
that offer cheap rates and good service became extremely popular. In
order to attract Chinese clients, American service providers have begun to
offer Chinese-language service instructions as well as hiring administrators
fluent in Chinese.

... One netizen said that the current
clean-up campaign has serious consequences: The Chinese Internet service
providers are losing revenue and this will affect the development of the
Internet industry as a whole. Furthermore, when the forums migrate
overseas, the relevant departments will have no effective way to administer
them. As a result, pornography, politics and violence will proliferate
...

"Typhoon Sepat hits Xiamen (Fujian); 63 workers from big Internet
company are missing!" Since August 19, this post appeared first
at 15:02 on August 19 at a Xiamen social networking website named
Dedewang. It was later carried at various big forums and drew broad
attention and speculation. The poster imitated the newspaper reporting
style to claim: "The ninth super typhoon of the year Sepat hit Xiamen,
with the number of dead reaching 20 already. There are 69 persons
missing, including 63 people missing from a Xiamen Internet company named
Dedewang. According to the latest estimates, the direct economic
losses have reached 3.7 billion yuan.

The post also described that Dedewang had organized a company cruise on July
7th (Lunar Year) and more than 100 netizens joined the party. The
public security bureau eventually verified that 63 people were
missing. "The public security bureau has organized a search team
of 300 people who are combing the island in search of survivors."
The post even said, "State Council deputy premier Hui Liangyu and
Fujian provincial party secretary Lu Zhangaong and deputy governor Huang
Xiaojing were briefed about the disaster on the afternoon of August 19 in
Xiamen." The post included a group photo of the company workers
as well as photographs of the rescue effort at the disaster scene with the
appropriate captions.

Although there are some obvious errors (such as Sepat landing in Guangzhou
instead of Xiamen), many people believed the post and re-posted it
elsewhere. Netizens asked: "Why are they going out to sea when a
typhoon was coming?"

Yesterday, the Fujian provincial government information office and the
Xiamen city government information office held press conferences to declare
that this was a "maliciously devised rumor!"

When the rumor began to spread, Dedewang received an order to delete the
post. According to the police ,the company's legal representative
named Yu and the general manager of technology named Chen attempted to
destroy the evidence by modifying the log files and also created the
impression that the poster named Su had left the company a long time
ago. Yu and Chen then went into hiding.

According to the Xiamen public security bureau's Internet safety supervisory
department, they asked all websites to delete this post as soon as they
could and then they began to trace the source. They went in at night
and took away four computers and two servers from Dedewang. They
determined who the suspects were and they found the original text and
photographs at the office.

In the evening of August 21, the poster named Su turned himself in after
having been in hiding. According to the police, Su had been making
posts at various other large websites to promote the name of Dedewang with
the consent of Yu, in order to boost traffic to their website. The
public security bureau is currently looking for Yu.

China Airlines has painted over its name
and logo on the wreckage of a passenger jet that exploded in flames at Naha
Airport in Okinawa moments after passengers slid down emergency chutes to
escape.

The airline painted over the name
"China Airlines" on the left-hand side of the aircraft and the
company's logo on the plane's tail fin.

After the accident, photographs and video
footage of the jet continued to appear in news reports, and the company
apparently painted over the name and logo to limit further damage to its
image.

Before painting over the name and logo, the
airline sought permission from the Land, Infrastructure and Transport
Ministry's Aircraft and Railway Accidents Investigation Commission.
Officials granted the request, judging that it would not hinder the
investigation into the accident, and the airline painted over the markings
following inspections carried out on Tuesday.

When questioned over the move, an official
from the Taiwan-based airline said, "We followed international
procedures. We do not have detailed information."

Indeed, there are plenty of other examples. For example, ABC
reported from Indonesia: "Meanwhile, airline officials have declined to
explain why a logo on the wreckage has been painted over. Before it was
painted over and then cut down, the stylised flying garuda emblem could be
clearly seen on the burnt tail of the plane, where it exploded past the end of
the runway at Yogyakarta airport. On the side, a registration number
identifying ownership of the wreck was also visible before it too was painted
over with white paint. The practice, designed to limit bad publicity,
was also used to disguise an Adam Air flight that crash-landed and almost
cracked in two in Suryabaya several weeks ago."

But the practice is not universal, because I have taken the famous Sandia Tram
in Albuquerque (New Mexico) from which one can see an airplane wreck down
below in a canyon known as TWA Canyon (see Wikipedia).
The TWA logo is not intact, though (see photo).

The US Democratic Party and Republican
Party will be holding primary elections for their presidential candidates
next year. Last month, CNN and YouTube joined to hold a debate forum
of the Democratic Party candidates. In Hong Kong, there is no
universal suffrage, but some people are trying to bring the primary election
culture and atmosphere to Hong Kong by holding a debate forum among
pan-democratic candidates for the Hong Kong Island Legislative Council
by-election to replace the late Ma Lik.

Ideally for the pan-democrats, this forum will allow the candidates to
debate publicly so that the participants can agree that the winner is the
better candidate. The pan-democrats also want to use the forum to draw
more citizens to participate here, so that they will give their support in
the by-election as well as the debate on political reform. This will
also be helpful in the district council elections on November 18. But
a coin has two sides, and the pan-democrats have two big worries.

First of all, the reason for the forum is
that the interested persons -- Cyd Ho of Civic Act-Up, Raymond Wong or Lo
Wing-lok of the League of Social Democrats and Kam Nai-wai of the Democratic
-- party have different degrees of name recognition. If the
pan-democrats move ahead directly with a public opinion poll, those with
better name recognition will do better for sure. But if a public
debate forum is held, the citizens will be able to make a more objective
evaluation after watching their performance.

But according to the previous experiences
of pan-democratic street forums, they will only draw a few dozens
spectators, especially since this by-election forum will not be like the
Chief Executive debate forum held this past March. The political
ecology of Hong Kong is not as mature as that in USA or Europe. If too
few people show up, it would not achieve the effect that the
pan-democrats hope for and the citizens will decide by name
recognition if they are polled.

But there seems to be a turning point here,
as a certain Commercial Radio has contacted Emily Lau, the convenor of the
forum, to discuss live or delayed broadcasts of this primary election
forum. There is a good chance for this to happen.

The other problem for the pan-democrats is
that there may be scenes in which pan-democratic candidates verbally attack
each other at the forum. Before they even deal with the opponent, they
are already at each other's throats. If this is badly managed, it
could affect the voting intentions of the pan-democratic supporters on Hong
Kong Island, perhaps even cashing away supporters who detest personal
attacks.

Ronny Tong of the Civic Party said that it
is inevitable that one would describe others as being adequate during a
bpucli debate. But he believed that the candidates will be expressing
their own platforms and that there will not be any divisions among the
pan-democrats.

The candidate Cyd Ho hopes that this forum
will bring in a new political culture so that people will see that the
competiion among democrats is a gentlemanly one. But some democrats
who do not like the candidacy of Cyd Ho has already indicated that they will
bring up at the forum the fact that Cyd Ho has been calling on people to
delay paying their government rates and rents in civic protest against the
absence of universal suffrage. So its seems that sparks will fly at
the primary election of the pan-democrats.

Addendum: The last paragraph
refers to Cyd Ho's call for civil disobedience by delaying rate and rent
payments to the government to fight for universal suffrage. People have
questioned the logic of this call for action. For one thing, government
operations do not depend heavily on these types of payments. For another
thing, there is a 5% penalty after the first warning for delayed rates payment
and a 10% after the second warning. So this means that the protestors
are actually earning interest for the government. Eventually, the rates
will have to be paid or else the property cannot be sold.

[069] Hong
Kong By The Numbers (08/24/2007) (HKU
POP) (1,008 persons interviewed August 13-18, 2007 to rate
their views on the political parties of Hong Kong)

Are you curious about the Ma Lik effect? On June 16, Ma Lik commented
on the incident of June 4th, 1989. On August 9, Ma Lik died of
cancer. According to HKU POP poll, DAB had a rating of 49.6 during May
16-25 and a rating of 54.8 during August 13-16. There was an increase
of 5.2. However, this change does not necessarily mean that the Hong
Kong public agree with Ma Lik's views with respect to June 4th, 1989.

An Internet post titled <The
Sinofication of World of Warcraft resulted in almost 10,000 filtered
words, thus seriously affecting the quality of the online game> is making
the rounds. "Users are finding out that their chat sessions can
have some words mysteriously replaced by characters such as @#$^&％.
This often make ordinary communication impossible."

Here is an example: Suppose you type "银行门口交易"
(translation: Make the transaction at the entrance to the bank). You
will get "银行门#$％^&*易"
instead. The problem here is that the entrance (or the 'mouth') of the
bank combined with transaction is the term "口交"
(translation: fellatio). Therefore, you get "#$％^&*"
instead. As another example, "红色魔纹护肩"
(translation: Red-colored demon-tatooed shoulder wrap) appears instead as
"红#$％^&*纹护肩".
The problem here is that "color" in combination with
"demon" is "色魔"
(translation: sex fiend). Very common terms become filtered because
they can be taken to mean something else in the surrounding context.

So what is the truth of the
filtering? The reporter compared the mainland and Taiwan editions of World
of Warcraft. There are 9,133 filtered words in the Taiwan edition,
and 9,685 in the mainland edition. Prior to July this year, both
versions had 9,133 filtered words. When version 2.1.3 was introduced
in mainland China on July 17, 532 new filtered words were added. There
are basic types of situations: Insulting language such as "sex
fiend"; politically sensitive terms such as "People's
Congress" and "Communist Party Political Consultative
Conference"; terms affecting the business (e.g. the name of the company
that distributes World of Warcraft in China and even its CEO).

In truth, many of the 9,133 filtered words
in the Taiwan/mainland China edition come from elsewhere and they are used
universally in all editions of World of Warcraft. More than
1,000 of these terms are Korean-language and come from the Korean
server. More than 7,000 of these terms are English-language and come
from the US and European servers. Only about 500 of them are
Chinese-language. So as of now, there are about 1,000 Chinese-language
filtered terms in the mainland server. Therefore, it is an
exaggeration to claim that China is filtering almost 10,000 terms in World
of Warcraft. That is literally true, but the United States is
filtering 9,133 terms in its version.

P.S. There is a mystery here about
the filtering of the Journey To The West character Monk Sha (沙僧).
This character is not even a part of World of Warcraft. Here
are the speculations about the reason:

1. Monk Sha wears a necklace of 9 human skeletons around his neck.
Since the Chinese version of World of Warcraft has been 'sanitized'
at the request of the relevant department by having all skeletons replaced
with corpses (see Comment
200706#101), Monk Sha should not be mentioned.

2. Monk Sha is the nickname of a senior manageer of the distributor company.

3. The person in charge of setting up the filtered terms added this in order
to make fun of the system.

4. Some people may regard Monk Sha as a dedicated religious man, and this
respects their view.

5. "Monk Sha" rhymes with the Chinese term for "kill
monk" and this is disrespectful to religious beliefs.

6. Another game company distributes a game based upon Journey To The West,
and therefore Monk Sha was filtered for competitive reasons.

7. It is one thing for Monk Sha to be filtered, but what about another Journey
To The West character, the Bull Demon King? Why was he filtered as
well?

[067] What
Was Indecent In Ming Pao? (08/23/2007) (Ming Pao)
More mysteries were generated by the Television and Entertainment Licensing
Authority/Obscene Articles Tribunal in Hong Kong today. Previously,
Ming Pao was notified that its Sunday Life section was classified as Class
II: Indecent material. Everybody assumed that it was the survey
questionnaire (see translation).
Now it turns out to be something else. The following form letter was
sent to Ming Pao to explain what was it was. Written by hand were five
words (translated as "Drawing, penetration of lower body
part"). Ming Pao is asking for a judicial review because the
magistrate had not followed the requirements of the Control of Obscene and
Indecent Articles Ordinance to notify Ming Pao by letter about the classification
and the exact reason for it. The lack of notification meant that Ming
Pao was unable to offer a defense and was therefore unfair to the
newspaper. Even this form letter does not explain which picture in the
five page special section was indecent.

[066] How
To Get From Book B Into Book A (08/22/2007) What are Book A
and Book B? In Hong Kong, the major 'tabloid' weekly magazine Next
Weekly is famously sub-divided into two separate books. The
division is approximately Book A being "Current Affairs/Finance"
and Book B being "Entertainment." A Book B person might be
an actress or a singer, while a Book A person might be a politician or a
tycoon. It is rare for a Book B person to be treated as a Book A
person, or vice versa.

In today's issue of Next Weekly (issue #911, August 23, 2007), the
<Extraordinary People> section on page 76 features Erica Yuen with the title
<Erica Yuen: Into Book A, Finally>. Erica Yuen is a former Miss
Hong Kong contestant and is frequently featured in Book B. But she has
now gotten a four-page feature in Book A. What is the key?

According to the opening paragraphs of the feature article, "Erica's Yuen's
essays were translated into English by the EastSouthWestNorth website and read
all over the world. The EastSouthWestNorth website is the focus of
many international media such as BBC, CNN, China Daily, The Guardian (UK),
New York Times, Interfax Agency, etc. So this was how a Book B person
jumped into the Current Affairs section. 'Really? It is really
good to be in Book A,' said Erica Yuen."

For the record, there were two blog posts by Erica Yuen translated at the
EastSouthWestNorth website: Tabloid
Magazine Readership in Hong Kong and Hong
Kong Reporter Transgresses Against A God And Gets Lynched. These
essays were selected and translated because they illuminate certain aspects
of the state of media (including the Internet) in Hong Kong and not because
the author is a celebrity. If the author's role mattered, it was
because her personal experiences inform us about tabloid magazine paparazzis
and cyber-bullying as a Book B celebrity when most netizens can only speculate at the pressure
that she was under.

[065] They
Spread Rumors (08/22/2007) (Yangzi Evening News via Netease)
So far this year, the Jiangsu public security bureau has handled 64 cases of
people making up lies and spreading them on the Internet. 60
individuals have been punished as a result. Here are three cases:

#1. "Do not use toothpicks in
restaurants! Recently, a group of AIDS patients have been dabbing
toothpicks with their blood in restaurants and then replacing them in the
box for the purpose of spreading the disease. Please be
careful!" This item originally appeared in mid-May and the public
security bureau issued warnings to the public that this was a rumor.
But the police found out that the item was circulating again on July 11,
with large numbers of SMS messages. The police determined that that
the originator was a man named Tu using mobile phone number
1361611XXXX. Another individual named Cai also spread the same message
to the same group of users. The two were arrested and explained that
they had forwarded the message out of curiosity. Between July 11 and
14, they sent more than 200 messages out.

#2. At 7pm on July 31, a netizen published
a post titled : <Jingjiang student accepted by Tsinghua University dies
after being chased by traffic police>. In the story, a father and
his son were riding a motorcycle and they encountered a police
roadblock. Since they were not wearing helmets, the father sped away
and the traffic police gave chase. The father lost control of the
motorcycle which fell. His son died as a result. The son had
just been accepted by Tsinghua University. This story drew
"public rage" on the Internet. The Jiangsu provincial public
security bureau elader ordered its Jingjiang division to investigate.
The local police found a netizen named Ju had heard a fictional account and
then wrote the post with elaboration. The police also asked Tsinghua
University for the names and addresses of the six students that were
accepted from Jinjiang and verified that all were well.

#3. On April 18, a post appeared at Xici
Hutong's Jiangsu forum titled <The shootings at the XX middle school in
Suzhou>. The post claimed: "The shootings wil begin
soon. Even though it will not be the most serious shooting ever in
China, the number of dead will exceed that at Virginia Tech." The
provincial and city public security bureau began to investigate
immediately. Several hours later, they arrested 27-year-old Xu, who
used to teach English at XX middle school in Suzhou. Xu explained that
he had a dispute with the school leaders and was let go. He had
written the post in revenge and he admits that the post was fictional.

... The reason why the problem of 'rumors'
is complicated is that the definition is vague. In real life, it is
hard to determine the boundaries of rumors. In many cases, a piece of
news is largely accurate but it may contain inaccurate factors. When
society eliminates commentary that are not 100% accurate, it is eliminating
commentary itself.

... The reason why the ability to determine
rumors is a serious issue is because we are overly sensitive to rumors in
this society. We are also overly vulnerable with respect to
rumors. Under normal circumstances, a society should have a certain
immunity against rumors. This immunity arises in a normal opinion
commentary environment, where people can easily determine which news items
are more credible. In our society, we are overly sensitive to rumors
because we do not have a normal opinion commentary environment. The
mystification of authority limits the amount of information available and
the uniformity of the sources of information makes comparison hard. As
a result, there is less trust for the authoritative sources of information,
which sometimes even invoke an instinctive rejection. This is the
reason why rumors can be so damaging in our society.

An associated problem is just why people
are so enthusiastic about anonymous commentary. A basic reason is that
the conditions are far from ripe for real-name commentary. If people
can freely use their real names to express their opinions or disseminate
information, they will do so. When that time comes, anyone who
publishes anonymously will only raise suspicion and any false information
will have limited impact or even becoming a joke.

In the construction of a harmonious
society, policies are important but the system is even more basic. A
normal opinion commentary environment is such a system.

On August 19, Chinese intellectual property rights
owners sued Japanese television stations for showing almost 500 Chinese
television drama series covering almost 9,000 episodes without permission or
compensation from 2003 through 2006. According to the copyright owners
of the television drama series <The Lettuce>, Japan's SKY PerfecTV
satellite television system showed <The Lettuce> in 2005 on its
channel 785. The company filed suit in a Tokyo court and won a
judgment. This case is presently in the stage of determining the
compensation, which is based upon the current sales price of 10 to 15
million yen per episode.

The case of <The Lettuce> is the tip of an iceberg. During this
trial, the Japanese side was unable to produce any legal authorization for
any of the 200 Chinese television drama series that has been shown so
far. In SKY PerfecTV's channel 781, almost 300 Chinese television
drama series have been shown so far almost without any authorization.
Between 2003 and 2006, nearly 500 series involving 9,000 episodes had been
shown without permission.

Now wasn't that awful? That was until someone
came along and actually looked up SKY PerfecTV's channel
781 and channel 785
(see Daqi).
At the website of channel 781, the title is Shanghai Media Group/Dragon TV; at
the website of channel 785, the title is CCTV 9. These are Chinese
international channels that are being distributed in Japan by the satellite
television platform known as SKY PerfecTV.

When a satellite television platform carries a channel signal, it does not
worry about the copyrights because only the channel is liable. If there
is a lawsuit, then it is CCTV 9 and Shanghai Media Group which are being sued
for showing Chinese television drama series overseas without copyright payment
to the producers. As early as 2003, SKY PerfecTV was offering a
Chinese-language package consisting of channels 781, 784 and 785 (see Jiangsu
Qiaowang). The wonder here is why the latest news reports refer
to SKY PerfecTV channels 781 and 785 instead of their real identities:
Shanghai Media Group and CCTV 9?

I remind myself to be "rational and
constructive" professionally and I try to avoid certain indignant
feelings and ideas in order to comment more calmly and rationally. But
when I read the following kinds of news, I could not hold back my anger.

A few days ago, the media exposed the
"disaster relief show" and caused a public opinion storm. In
this case, the Gaoling county (Xian city) government officials distributed
relief materials to the disaster victims. But as soon as the superiors
left with the television crews, the local government officials took back the
money handed to the disaster victims. On August 19, the county
publicity department leader explained the truth: the village cadres were
careless and handed the "emergency relief funds" to the wrong
people. The town cadres were trying to rectify the mistake by taking
the money back. Therefore, it was a "misunderstanding" on
the part of reporters that the Gaoling county cadres were staging a show.

What an amazing
"misunderstanding" on the part of reporters! It totally
negated any possibility of "staging a disaster relief show."
Instead, the town cadres became model heros for "rectifying the
incorrect distribution of disaster relief funds." Is it necessary
to praise and reward them with a bonus (from taxpayers' money)?
Certain local departments are just astonishingly competent, because they can
turn the biggest and ugliest scandals into wonderfully positive events, and
political mistakes are made into political accomplishments.

The media are not the Department of Truth,
and their reporting cannot be guaranteed to be 100% accurate. Due to
the limitations of the news gathering techniques and scopes, the media and
the reporters often make mistake. The "cardboard steam buns"
case is one example. Therefore, it is certainly possible to rebut the
report about the "disaster relief show" through the local
departments and principals reporting about the facts of the case. In
an environment in which information is transparent and communication is
fluid, nobody holds the sole right to truth which is realized through
continuous communication and correction.

Yet, what are the 'facts' as produced by
the Gaoling people? The village cadres were "careless" and
gave the "disaster relief funds" to the wrong people and the
reporters "misunderstood" this action. Wow! Brothers
and sisters, never mind whether the general public believes that!
Would you believe such an explanation yourself? Can you convince
yourself in terms of logic and experience? How can you give these very
important sums of money to the wrong people? Why was this discovered
just after the superiors and television crews left? Why do you admit
the mistake only after the media reported on the case? The public may
not be able to see the facts. But relatively speaking, the media
reports about the "disaster relief show" is more consistent with
the logic, knowledge and reality of China today.

Frankly speaking, it is not very
infuriating to see the local departments tell lies because this is about
protecting their own livelihood. We have seen enough of these
cases. What is infuriating is that certain government officials are
arrogant to the point that they do not bother with making up lies that show
a little bit more respect for logic and commonsense. Their
unbelievable lies are insults to the intelligence of the media and the
public. This shows that they don't care about the media and the
public: Believe it or not, this is my explanation; When I see that these are
the facts, these are the facts; What are you going to do about it! If
you want a more convincing explanation, then I can't be bothered.

This reminds me of another news item a few
days ago. In Xiangfan city (Hubei province), citizens complained that
nine municipal administrators did not pay their bill at a hot pot
restaurant. After the media exposure, the relevant local government
department explained: the citizen complaint about non-payment of the
restaurant bill was not true. The truth was that after finishing the
meal, the municipal administrators gave the sum of 175 yuan directly to the
restaurant owner instead of paying at the cashier's counter.
Therefore, the only mistake here is for the municipal administrators to eat
there while in uniform and therefore creating a bad impression for the
public. This "direct payment of the restaurant bill to the
restaurant owner" must be intended to fool a 3-year-old child!
Like the "disaster relief show," this is an insult to the
intelligence of the media and the public.

What couldn't they come up with a more
convincing and more technical explanation? Some people say that these
government officials become stupid when they get corrupted by power. I
disagree. They are actually not stupid at all. They are alert,
smart and practical. They were not looking for an explanation to
convince the media and the public, because they don't care about what the
media and the public think. The media does not have to power to do
anything to them, and the public cannot vote them out -- their job security
lies in the hands of their superiors. So they only have their
superiors in their eyes. When the scandal was exposed by the media,
the superiors were embarrassed and demanded an explanation from their
underlings. So these people came up with an explanation to satisfy
that demand. The key is therefore that they must come up with some
explanation or the other so that the superiors can explain to their own
superiors.

So the completely illogical explanation
behind the scandal reveals many things. They don't expect to convince
you. You are only supposed to listen and move on.

[061] Hong Kong
By The Numbers (08/21/2007) (HKU
POP) (1,008 persons interviewed August 13-18, 2007 about the
popularity of the SAR and Central Governments and confidence in the future)

HKSAR Government65%: Trust
6%: Distrust

Trust in Beijing Government56%: Trust
15%: Distrust

Confidence in Hong Kong's future79%: Confidence
14%: No confidence

Confidence in China's future87%: Confidence
8%: No confidence

Confidence in "one country, two systems"77%: Confidence
17%: No confidence

The Chinese Ministry of Education held a press conference in which it listed
171 new Chinese terms. Here are some of the examples:

吊瓶族
-- (the tribe with the dripping bottles) these are pushy people who enter
the hospital and immediately demand IV feed regardless of their cause for
being there三手病
-- (the three-hand ailment) these are fatigue problems from overuse of the
hand from (1) playing with game machines; (2) computer mouse-clicking; and
(3) sending SMS on mobile phones.
7时代
-- (the era of 7) this refers to the era when the USD:yuan exchange rate
fell to 7.XX (note: the preceding era was 8时代)两会博客
-- (the Two Congresses bloggers) this refers to the representatives and
reporters who blogged during the two Congresses
2时歇业令
-- (order to halt business at 2am) the regulation for entertainment
facilities to halt business at 2am倒扁
-- (down with Bian) the mass protest movement in Taiwan to bring down Chen
Shui-bian灰色技能
-- (grey skills) certain companies require their employees to have
non-traditional skills such as drinking, singing, mahjong, cards and other
skills独二代
-- (second-generation single child) 4-2-1 family (four grandparents, two
parents, one child) with their special social and psychologial issues美丽垃圾
-- (pretty trash) the fancy gift packaging (bags, boxes, wrappings and
ribbons) that are discarded afterwards

But the most interesting thing was that 7 (or 4%) of the new terms contained
the word 奴
(Slave).

房奴
-- (house slave) people who work to pay off their home mortgage loan
车奴 -- (car slave) people
who have to deal all the costs associated with car ownership, such as tolls,
gas, parking, insurance, etc.
证奴 -- (stock slave)
people who invest in the stock market and are exploited by the big players
墓奴 -- (grave slave)
people who work to pay off a loan used to purchase a burial plot
垄奴 -- (monopoly slave)
people who are forced to used a monopolized service or product at
ridiculously marked-up
prices
白奴 -- (white slave)
white-collar worker who has to keep working for a living
节奴 -- (feast slave)
people who are forced to give presents during important western feasts (such as
Christmas, Valentines' Day, etc)

As the Southern Metropolis Daily noted, <Brief History of the Development
of Society> says that the slaves resist by (1) job slowdown; (2) sabotage
production machinery; (3) fleeing. Job slowdown will result in wage
reduction; sabotage will result loss of job; fleeing ... where could you
flee to?

P.S. There is a debate whether a middle class exists in China. You
look at this list of words. What are they about? It is the
middle class.

I had gone out to dinner with her for
exactly the opposite reason. I was 25 and an aspiring writer, living in
Beijing and cobbling together a living as a freelance journalist. When I
came back to New York for my yearly visit in 2000, I got in touch with a
friend from college, whom I will call Sting. Sting worked for
"Susan" as a personal assistant and he invited me to an evening
film screening and meal with him and his famous boss. Of course I said yes.

...

"So you must know about Bei
Ling?"

"Who?"

"He's a poet who was recently arrested
there. He lives in the States and when he returned to Beijing to distribute
magazines, was jailed for several weeks."

I had never heard of him. The major Western
Internet sites -- CNN, BBC, the New York Times -- were blocked in China,
limiting my access to news. I had been working without an official
journalist's accreditation and so I had stayed away from thorny political
issues, preferring to write articles about the demise of traditional Peking
opera, and tampon companies making inroads into the Chinese market.

To my frustration, I found that there were
only two stories that the Western press wanted to hear about China: the
economy's meteoric rise and the government's oppression of its people. The
iconic image of a lone man standing in front of a tank during the Tiananmen
Square massacre of 1989 had not been replaced by a more complex portrait of
China in 2000 in all of its contradictions.

I hesitated, not sure whether I should lie
or not. I decided to adopt the know-it-all machismo of my new profession.
Why lie? I was going to stand my ground.

"No," I said, "I hadn't
heard about that."

"You're a journalist and you haven't
heard about that?" she asked, an edge creeping into her voice.

At that point I should have just apologized
for being so ignorant, but guilt and pride and all manner of human folly
intervened, so I said, "Oh, um, ahem ... that's kind of dissident news
...um ... "

"What?"

"Dissident news. When you're covering
news in China, you don't generally pay that much attention to the arrests of
dissidents ... um..."

My hands and voice were starting to quiver
like jelly. I put down my chopsticks.

"Why don't you?"

That arresting Sontagian stare you see
emanating from book jackets and the pages of magazines? It had leapt off the
page and was boring into me from across the dinner table. Her voice was low
and commanding like a man's, transforming her question into an order. She
was ready for a fight, and to my surprise, so was I. If only I could break
my habit of transforming declarative sentences into questions.

"Well, dissidents just don't seem
relevant sometimes?"

Sting tried to step in. "Maybe also
you can't read that kind of news in China?"

"The Western press should be covering
that kind of story," Susan said.

I was getting backed into a corner; the
next thing I knew I would be defending the Chinese government.

"I don't know why I didn't see the
story," I said, backing down. "I'm just saying that there are
bigger stories in China?"

She sensed my weakness and went in for the
kill.

"So, you're saying that the jailing of
this poet isn't important?"

I gasped. Susan Sontag was going to sit in
a sushi restaurant in the East Village and tell me that the fate of this
dinky, two-bit poet who lived most of the year in the States was more
important than, say, the plight of the country's 800 million farmers? The
hubris!

"No. But in the grand scheme of all of
the problems that China faces, I guess I'm saying it's not. China has a lot
of big problems that the Western press doesn't cover. Poverty. You know,
corruption," I said, racking my brains. "Environmental
devastation." I looked over at Sting for help. He was drawing his
finger across his throat.

We went back and forth for a few minutes,
neither of us budging, before Susan turned away and ignored me for the rest
of the meal. I tried to pick up my chopsticks but my hands shook too
violently to lift even a single piece of sushi, much less choke it down.

We parted ways after dinner. Sting helped
Susan get into a cab, and then he and I walked to the subway.

We parted ways after dinner. Sting helped
Susan get into a cab, and then he and I walked to the subway.

What a mortifying initiation into New York
literary life. My petty insecurities had made me look like an ass in front
of the most famous person I had ever had dinner with. I took solace in
imagining that I had joined a pantheon of great minds who had locked horns
with Susan Sontag.

"Do you want to know why she got so
angry?" Sting asked.

"I don't know, do I?"

"She was personally involved in
getting that poet out of jail. She and other PEN writers petitioned the
Chinese government for his release," he said. "So you were
basically taking her to task for being a Western intellectual with an
inconsequential pet project."

I started laughing. I had schooled Susan
Sontag! Relief washed over me.

She was right to defend freedom of speech,
but I was right about China's having more basic and urgent problems.
Dissidents might be a sexier sell than farmers, but they weren't necessarily
more important.

My mortification began to fade as we
walked. Her obstinacy, like mine, had not been fueled by a lofty sense of
moral responsibility. We had both been motivated by personal passions and
insecurities. And that was perfectly fine. In the end, she had schooled me
too.

When I was younger than 20 years old, I
believed in many things. Later, one after another of those beliefs
was overturned.

I used to believe in patriotism, but I
later found out that the definition of 'country' was problematic.
The standard 'country' that we were instructed to love was not necessarily
lovable, it was not necessarily worthy of our love, and it even deserved
to be overthrown.

I used to believe in history, but I later
found out that half of history was fabricated. The history of the
preceding dynasty was always written by the people of the succeeding
dynasty, who will always negate their predecessors. In turn, their
succeeding dynasties will always negate them. But double negatives
do not necessarily end in a positive and we are just accumulating the
successive distortions and twists so that the truth will always be covered
up and never restored. It is one thing to say that "history
must not be buried in ashes," but history often wind up in
ashes. It is possible to win by distorting and misinforming.

I used to believe in the power of
civilization, but I later found out that the stupidity and barbarity of
people do not disappear as a result of any progress in civilization.
It is just that stupidity and barbarity take different forms: simple
peasant workers, reflective intellectuals, self-confident politicians and
righteous leaders may bring out even worse stupidity and barbarity.
Between barbarity and civilization, there is only a subtle and easily
erasable difference.

I used to believe in justice, but I later
found out that there exists two kinds of justice that are in irreconcilable conflict with each other. If you choose one, then
your justice implies injustice. You won't be able to tell that when
someone advocates a particular kind of justice at a particular moment,
there is a hidden and unobservable injustice underneath.

I used to believe in idealists, but I
later found out that idealists cannot pass the test of power: once they
obtain power, they could become the "evil" that they had vowed
to fight, or else they are utterly feeble in reality and are brought down
immediately by the power mongers without being able to achieve their
ideals. The idealists must have character and morality in order not
to be corrupted by power and the idealists must have the capability to
turn their ideals into practice. But it is rare to find any ideals
who have both character and capability.

... Before I was twenty years old,
I believed in many things. I still believe in some of them even
today.

For example, even though the country may
not be lovable, but the its earth and people can still be loved. For
example, if history cannot be trusted, but there is no end to the pursuit
of truth. For example, civilization may be weak and vulnerable, but
we have actually nothing else to rely on. For example, justice may
be extremely suspect, but caring about justice is better than not.
For example, idealists may not be able to accomplish much, but our society
will be different without them ...

... There is great deal to ponder deeply
about what to believe and not to believe.

When Sun Haiying said that
"homosexuality is a crime," I thought that he was going to get
into trouble. Indeed, there was big trouble. I was reading
<Beijing News> on August 16 and I saw <Li Yinhe blasts
"Homosexuality is a crime" talk>. I went to search for
"Sun Haiying" on Baidu and I found "Sun Haiying
homosexuality" among the results. There were numerous Internet
posts that criticized Sun Haiying. This showed that things have
changed on the Internet: at first, it was Sun Haiying attacking
homesexuality and now it has become homosexuals attacking Sun Haiying.
Criticisms are being lofted back and forth and the battle has just begun.

I do not intend to discuss the issue of
"homosexuality is a crime." I only want to discuss Ms. Li
Yinhe's "blast" essay. That essay is actually very short and
appeared originally on August 14 on her blog. But when I read it
carefuly, I found the tone and choice of words to be interesting. The
title of the essay was <Raising respect for homosexuality to the level of
building a harmonious society>. The title seems to carry a boldness
in vision that could compete with the titles of the editorial pieces in
<People's Daily>

The first sentence of Li's essay was
"I recently saw Sun Haiying's erroneous sayings and I felt that I had
to say a few words." The essay therefore started with a bang, but
it contained a certain tone of officialese; and "erroneous
sayings" can easily remind people of the familiar choice of words in
officialese. I read on: "Sun Haiying's words displayed ignorance,
cruelty and lack of culture. It is simply incredible that someone can
say such things in the 21st century." Then some examples were
offered (such as Hitler sending homosexuals away to concentration
camps). This may be treated as the basis for refutation and it is not
a big problem. But the words were mean and spiteful. Then she
began to raise this to a higher level. I will cite the original text:
"Our nation is presently advocating the building of a harmonious
society. The so-called harmony is the harmonious co-existence people
from different social strata, ethnic groups and gender orientations.
The rich and the poor, the Han people and other minority groups and the
heterosexuals and homosexuals should co-exist harmoniously. We should
raise the respect for homosexuality to level of the construction of the
harmonious society and oppose the stupid, ignorant and cruel talk of Sun
Haiying that destroys social harmony."

It should be clear why I want to bring
attention to Li Yinhe's essay. In my view, whether it was the title,
the form or the content, the essay was borrowing the language of
officialese. The so-called "destruction of social harmony"
is a political position which cannot be determined by academic
discourse. Its function is similar to the "destruction of
stability and unity" a few years ago, or the "destruction of the
good revolutionary trend" in even earlier years. Following this
line of thought, Sun Haiying's talk must not only be "erroneous"
but it must be "reactionary"; it is not only
"reactionary", but it is "counter-revolutionary."
Such being the case, the "homosexuality is a crime" talk becomes a
political problem and Comrade Sun Haiying becomes a
"counter-revolutionary" in the "political arena."

This way of thinking and writing is very
problematic. ...

First, scholars should have their own
thinking process and discourse styles without using pre-defined language
models to open the way. Otherwise, they just become dependent and
lazy. From the broad perspective, Li Yinhe's essay suggestion to
"raise the respect for homosexuality to the level of the construction
of the harmonious society" is reasonable, but it erased the special
nature of the "small narratives." Today, the term
"harmonious society" has become a magical basket. Anything
that is not harmonious has the chance of being rectified when placed in
it. In truth, this may be a false impression. When pork,
vegetables, cardboard buns, illegal brick kilns and homosexuality all get
put into the same basket, they lose their distinctions. Furthermore,
the line of thought is fixed. The end result may be that it has the
legitimacy of being politically correct, but it has lost its effectiveness
at problem-solving.

Secondly, whenever some speech becomes
officialese, its nature often changes. Officialese is permeated and
assembled with power, and it is characteristically monolithic, serious,
stern and earnest. My understanding is that homosexuality discourse
had always been conducted among the people and that was why resistance and
rights defense are respected. But once homosexuality discourse is
incorporated into the narrative framework of officialese, it may look more
powerful but it also loses people's understanding and sympathy.
Personally, I did not have any views about homosexuality. But after
reading Li Yinhe's essay, I began to think: Aren't homosexuals a socially
vulnerable group? Why are they now fierce and tough once they arm
themselves with officialese? The end result may be that it may have
gotten the backing of officialese, but it has made people imagine that it is
using officialese to oppress others.

[056] Blog
Service Provider Sohu Is Sued (08/18/2007) (Bowen
Press) On August 16, 2007, a lawyer named Liu Xiaoyuan sued
Sohu in the Hatian district (Beijing) court for breach of service
contract. Liu asked the court to restore and display nine essays of
his that had been blocked by Sohu as well as to pay for the legal expenses.

Between June and August this year, Liu published nine essays at his Sohu
blog with these titles:

<Chen Liangyu: He is corrupt but he keeps getting promoted. Who's
responsible?>
<Thoughts on the "pre-meditated murder" case of Li Zhiping that
was not overturned for 24 years>
<The "unfairness" of the death penalty when corrupt officials
are sentenced to death by injection>
<If the letter of invitation had not been faked, would the deputy
prosecutor director be "dismissed" for using public money on
leisure travel?>
<Was the person who fabricated the story of the "cardboard
buns" guilty of damaging the reputation of a commercial product>?
<Is this Zheng Xiaoyu's final letter of "contrition"?>
<Will Zheng Xiaoyu avoid the death sentence through his appeal?>
<The reporter from China Under The Rule of Law interviews Li
Zhiping>

These essays were blocked by Sohu from being displayed on his blog.
Sohu offered the explanation: "Due to certain reasons, they are
unsuitable for publication" but they declined to say what the
"certain reasons" were. On July 31, Liu especially wrote an
essay titled <Can you not block my blog essays?> in which he said that
his essays were neither reactionary nor pornographic and so there was no
reason to prevent them from being displayed. He asked, Which part of
the contents touched a nerve with the administrators?

This is supposed to be the first case in China in which someone sued a blog
service provider for breach of contract through blocking blog posts.

[055] Emergency
Notice: Please Post As Is (08/17/2007) (note: no source is given
here, because it is irrelevant -- it comes from a trustworthy source whose
identity is irrelevant at this time).

Emergency call for help from fellow
workers! (Please re-post as widely as possible)

Reporters covering the bridge collapse in
Fenghuang: The reporter from Southern Metropolis Daily was seriously
injured; the China Youth Daily reporter Hong Kefei was kicked a
couple of times; the Oriental Observer reporter was also assaulted.

Xiangxizhou Communist Party Standing
Committee member and Publicity Department director Zhou Xiaomao declared
openly: only the Xinhua Agency and People's Daily reporters
are protected and all other media are gathering news illegally and therefore
their personal safety cannot be guaranteed!

At present, it is only known that the
county government is taking these actions.

Whether the county government can take these
actions is a function of (1) the reaction of mainstream media in China; (2)
the reaction of the Internet in China, especially from the media
reporters/bloggers; (3) international media.

First, Tu Cheng-sheng was captured on film in
a physical confrontation with media reporters on the way to meeting the
prosecutor over the scandal at the Imperial Palace Museum. After the
filmed footage was broadcast over all the television stations, Tu Cheng-sheng
came back with the explanation why he acted that way. He said:
"Especially with respect to the broadcast media, their microphones
contain a lot of germs. The microphone in this case was almost touching
my face, so I had to push it aside." From the film clip, it can be
seen that the reporter was chasing after Minister Tu Cheng-sheng and the
microphone was almost touching his face. At that point Tu turned around
and grabbed the germ-infested microphone and flipped it over. Clearly,
Minister Tu took personal hygiene seriously. Minister Tu apologized:
"If I touched the reporter because he was blocking my way and I had to
move forward, then I apologize to you." Minister Tu emphasized that
he only used his hand to steer the camera away because his route was blocked.

On the film, it was clear that Minister Tu was trying to go to his office and
he used his right hand to steer the camera away. The reporter was
asking: "Minister, did your son assault someone?" The replay
from another angle showed that Minister shoved the reporter aside with his
right hand. When the reporter lost his balance, Minister Tu used his
left hand to push the reporter up against the wall.

But that begs the question itself. What did the son of Minister Tu
do? Now that lad has already been a notorious media figure before for
any number of escapades. This time, he went to a party with his
girlfriend, who spent a lot of time speaking to a close male family of
hers. Tu had not idea who this guy was, but he was just plain
unhappy. When the party was over, there was a physical confrontation
between the two men outside as captured on closed circuit television.
The police was summoned. Afterwards, the other party said that he
received calls from 'powerful persons' not to file any assault charges against
the Minister's son. So that case is legally at a dead-end, but the media
still wanted to get a statement from Minister Tu.

Previously, there had been allegations that the Minister's son had obtained a
cushion job at Tainan mayor Chen Chu's office through his connections.
As a result of the brawl, the Minister's son has submitted a letter of
resignation. What cushion job will he get elsewhere?

"That's right. I am the person
who appears on the Interpol 'red' warrant. But to accuse me of
conspiracy, forgery and money laundering? The likelihood is less
than zero."

"How can some media reports say that
I am a wanted criminal? What evidence is there to prove that I am
guilty. Until convicted, anyone is presumed to be innocent."

"There are three photographs on the
Interpol web page. The first one is my passport photograph.
The second and third photographs were taken by a reporter for my
environmental protection work. The file information are about
me."

According to Chinese law, a foreigner must
reside in China for five full years before he can apply for permanent
residency. During this time, the person can leave China but for not
more than 3 months. Therefore, Rothey will not consider returning to
the United States right now to deal with the criminal charges because he
will need more time than 3 months.

Rothey has no contact with the Chinese
police except for the one time when he and his wife had to call 110 to ask
for assistance against the paparazzi reporters. His wife said:
"Otherwise, we have never been asked by the police to assist in any
investigation."

According to Chinese police sources, the
protocol is for Interpol to contact the Chinese national police
representative, who has to relay the information down from the national
level to the provincial level to the city level to assist in the
apprehension of a wanted criminal suspect. Until that has happened,
the local police has no probable cause to take action. At present,
there is no extradition treaty between China and the United States.
But China can expel Rothey on technical grounds.

Kenneth Lee Rothey was bidding to become
an Olympic torch bearer through a competition. The publicity over
the Interpol warrant has damaged him. The CCTV program team has just
been notified by 'higher authorities' that Rothey must not be allowed to
enter the finals. Rothey said that he will continue to pick up
garbage in the streets. "If I cannot raise the Olympic flames,
the torch will continue to glow in my heart. I will not let my
motherland be shamed."

Ever since the Chinese University of Hong
Kong Student Press affair, many adult discussion forums have adopted various
measures in order to avoid legal liability. For example, Uwants.com
will direct a visitor to a separate page which requires him/her to
acknowledge that he/she is 18 years or older. lalulalu.com set up a
password-protected zone which allows visitors who are "not Hong Kong
residents" to enter; otherwise, the visitor will be confronted with
huge warning messages on each and every page.

As far as this writer can tell, these
measures are not perfect. First of all, according to the Control of
Obscene and Indecent Articles Ordinance, "indecency" and "obscenity"
are two different concepts. "Obscenity" implies that it is
inappropriate to distribute to anyone. According to article 27, the
distribution, possession and access to any obscene article is a crime
subject to 3 years in prison and HK$1 million in fines. Article 24
requires indecent articles to be posted with warnings, but this is not
applicable to obscene articles. That is to say, if an article is
classified as "obscene," then the presence of the warning message
may be irrelevant.

On the other side, you may wonder if a
newsstand operator were to ask each adult magazine buyer, "Are you old
enough?", then are the warning messages necessary? Thus, to set
up a separate page to verify the age of the visitor may be able to bypass
Article 22 about "not distributing indecent articles to young
people" but it may still be a crime until Article 24 which requires
warning messages to be posted.

It is also tricky to post the warning
messages. At the Uwants.com adult discussion forum, each page contains
the warning message. But there is still the danger of trespassing the
law. Under the current regulations, web pages are most likely to be
regarded as "not using any packaging and not having front and back
covers" because the concept of front and back pages exists only in
printed material (note: the present regulations are archaic and do not have
a different section for web pages). Furthermore, this type of material
is supposed to have warning messages that are 20% or larger in area.
The 'area' at a discussion forum page is fixed for the original post, but it
may be expanded to the large number of comments. Therefore, it is best
to use an extra column on the side to post the warning message
repeatedly. Some discussion forums also have a unique position for
each comment, and so it is best to insert the warning message after each and
every comment.

Is this a nuisance? You should not
forget just who is holding the upper hand at a time when the authorities can
charge the laundry shops which wash the towels for prostitute as
"profiting from prostitution activities." Such being the
case, it is best to be as careful as possible in each and every step.

[051] I
Make Typographic Mistakes (08/17/2007) For various reasons, I
am presently trapped in a state of absent-mindedness which has resulted in
some egregious typographic mistakes. I usually run a "spell
check" which will accept correctly spelled words. But a correctly
spelled word in the wrong context is a disaster.

Case #1:

China
By The Numbers (08/14/2007) (KDNet)
China does not have many public opinion polls (or at least ones that are
published). The following is a poll of 1,000 citizens in Beijing,
Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shenyang, Harbin, Dalian, Zhengzhou, Chengdu
and Wuhan interviewed by telephone by the Social Survey Institute of China.

- 92.6% think that Taiwan's referendum to join the United States constitutes
"Taiwan independence"
- 76.5% think that Taiwan's referendum crossed the bottomline with respect
to cross-strait relationship
- 64.8% support the use of military force to solve the Taiwan problem if
necessary

If Taiwan joins the United States, it is
definitely not "Taiwan independence." The intended term should
be "United Nations."

Case #2:

Black Rain in Shenzhen (08/16/2007) (Southern
Metropolis Daily) On the night before yesterday, it began to
rain heavily in the Nanshan district (Shenzhen) just after 10pm.
According to Mr. Zhang, he was exiting his company and forgot to bring an
umbrella. So he walked right underneath the rain. "It was
dark. I had no idea that the rainwater was black. When I reached
my home, I found that my white shit had turned black as if it had been dyed
with ink. I touched my wet hair and I found that my hand was covered
with black water with an oily feel." Mr. Zhang was very
mystified. He telephoned his colleagues and they were also caught in
the black rain.

It is definitely news if someone defecates
"white shit." The intended term should be "white
shirt." [Aside: I was asking the restaurant waitress about why they
did not have 'stinky tofu' on their menu when I mentioned the black stink tofu
cube. The restaurant waitress had never seen it before. So I said,
'It is pitch black on the outside, but it tastes the same as the regular
browned ones. However, there is a noticeable difference in the
after-effect. When you defecate afterwards, your shit is also pitch
black."]

Anyway, why am I mentioning these embarrassing mistakes here. Because
these two were pointed out this week by a fellow blogger friend who said
amicably, "I have screen captures of these typographic mistakes and I am
going to denounce you!" The first lesson when caught in a public
relations crisis to the pre-empt the blackmailer and go public yourself.
In this case, I can even claim to be a nice person doing a public service:
"Don't rely on spell checkers only. Spend some time re-reading what
you have typed."

We have put in all our human resources
If you know of some way to combat that publicity machine
why are you keeping it to yourself?
We have lawyers ...
We keep receiving the support from the citizens ...
Media friends support us
TVB, Apple Daily, Ming Pao, SCMP, am 730, RTHK, Commercial Radio reporters
Perhaps our problem is that we do not have friends among the editors and
senior staff
If you don't know and don't understand Local Action, we are willing to
explain
If you really want to "comment," please make sure you understand
this matter first.

Jump to Comment #4 of that blog post:

First, nobody can prove that the
commentator was actually from Local Action
Second, if it is true, a single person does not represent the position of
the entire group

But I feel that this person is really rude
Anyone has the right to comment on anything that happens in society.
If this person feels that your essay was wrong, he could leave a comment an
point out what he disagreed with. It should not have been "If you
really want to 'comment,' please make sure you understand this matter
first." Just because someone disagrees with you does not mean
that they don't understand this matter. It could be that they have
different positions and views.

If you want to express your views as a
representative of an organization, you should act in a more mature manner.

This leads to the same problem with the
"My way or no way" approach with the judicial review petititioned by
Local Action in the matter of Queen's Pier. Here is Wong
Onyin:

This is a blind spot for social
activists. They hold the truth in their hands, and they assumed that
everybody including the judges must help them. Basically, the court
will consider the facts and not the persons. But there is always two
sides of the coin in terms of reasoning. You only see one side,
whereas the court needs to see both sides. You are ignoring that the
other side of the coin is also reasonable.

The basis for the judicial review is that a
certain government policy was "unreasonable." Senior judge
Denning made this definition: two perfectly reasonable persons can come to
completely different conclusions on the same thing; just because the policy
is unreasonable is not sufficient to grant a judicial review; the policy has
to extremely unreasonable to the point where everybody thinks that it is
unreasonable.

By the way, Fat Doctor's original blog post
on July 28 was a criticism of Local Action's publicity efforts which he judged
to be overwhelmed by the government publicity machine. As such, he may
be considered an 'enemy' but he could also be perfectly correct. That
blog post ends with: "I make a call here that no matter how you look at
these social activists, if you stil have a single bit of sentiment left for
Queen's Pier, you can go there this weekend to support the hunger
strikers. Alright?" As such, he may be considered a
'friend.' But is he friend or enemy after this comment?

[049] Black
Rain in Shenzhen (08/16/2007) (Southern
Metropolis Daily) On the night before yesterday, it began to
rain heavily in the Nanshan district (Shenzhen) just after 10pm.
According to Mr. Zhang, he was exiting his company and forgot to bring an
umbrella. So he walked right underneath the rain. "It was
dark. I had no idea that the rainwater was black. When I reached
my home, I found that my white shirt had turned black as if it had been dyed
with ink. I touched my wet hair and I found that my hand was covered
with black water that had an oily feel." Mr. Zhang was very
mystified. He telephoned his colleagues and learned that they were also caught in
the black rain.

According to a security guard in the Nanshan village district, he was on
duty at the time. The rain was not particularly heavy and it went on
for about half an hour. "At the time, I was walking about with an
umbrella. I did not realize that the rainwater was black. After
I returned to the duty room, I found black spots on my clothes. I
opened up my umbrella and it looked as if it had been dyed with black ink." In the morning, the security guard found that the road
surface had turned black and the cars parked on the road were blackened.

When this reporter went to Nanshan district yesterday morning, he found that
the leaves on the roadside bore signs of the black rain. Some of the
flowers that were dowsed by the black rain showed traces of blackness as well
as holes that had been burned through. The security guards said that
the flowers were fresh and intact before the rain came. They speculated
that the black rain water might be corrosive. The reporter also
personally examined the umbrella of the aforementioned security guard. There were
still a lot of blackish substance on the umbrella. The reporter touched it
with his fingers and found that it feel like charcoal and it was not easy to
wash it off.

According to the Shenzhen City Environmental Protection Administration, the
black rain may be due to the exhaust gas emitted by a big electricity
plant. The EPA requires the plants to clean out their machines
periodically. However, it has been peak production period recently and
the plant may not have been able to halt production for cleaning. When the
exhaust gas are sent into the air, the rain can bring them back down in the
form of black rain. Preliminary analysis showed the the black rain
residues were acidic, but it is not known how much harm (if any) it might
cause people.

[048] Bella
Chen Is Yanked (08/16/2007) (Sharp)
The Kmall (Taipei) across the Taipei train station had a huge outdoor wall
poster of Miss Asia Bella Chen 陳瑀涵
on the wall for a physical fitness program. Bella Chen has the
nickname of "basketball boobs" and her poster troubled parents
because of the young people who congregate at the mall, even causing a minor
traffic accident.

Therefore, after four days on exhibition, the wall poster has been
yanked. The wall poster had been scheduled to run for 30 days.
The advertisement cost NT$26,000 per day or NT$780,000 for 30 days.
10,000 people Kmall per day. The advertiser will not be compensated
for the premature removal of the wall poster and therefore they stand to
lose most of its investment. A company spokesperson said, "It is
better that it got taken off. She looked like she had no clothes on
and it may convey a negative image." Bella Chen was disappointed:
"I felt very pretty."

The media are supposed to have the sacred
duty of monitoring the conditions, satisfying the right of the people to know
and communicating culture. But many media are now playing the role of
delivering results to clients. They are more interested in swatting
the flies than attacking the tigers. The essential principle and
operational standard for chief editors, editors and reporters are never to
touch any government units higher than the local levels and to let the
advertiser clients become the "bosses" behind the scene.

I remember that in October 2002, a laid-off
worker in Xian named Guo Min gave birth to a female baby at a certain
provincial-level hospital. In the health status report for the baby,
the word "good" was entered. Two hours later, Guo began
giving milk to the baby and all was normal. She was enjoying the bliss
of a mother after feeding four or five times on the first day. But on
the second day, things turned for the worse as the hospital informed the
family that the baby was in a critical state due to bleeding. The
family was incredulous. They wondered if the baby had been dropped on
the floor and they demanded a medical examination, which was turned down by
the hospital. In order to save the baby, the father was forced to sign
an emergency notification paper. Two days later, the baby passed away
in the middle of the night.

The husband Zhao Fei did not want his wife
to grieve too much, so he arranged for her to return home as quickly as
possible. Several days later, the husband went back to the hospital to
demand an explanation and he insisted upon an autopsy in order to determine
the cause of death. But the hospital said that the body had been
cremated and even the ashes were gone. The family was perplexed and contacted
several media outlets. But all the news reports written by the
reporters were suppressed by their superiors. Through the introduction
of the reporters at two newspapers, the family contacted me.

During my investigation, the various
hospital departments were evasive at first. Then they diverged with
respect to the medical state as well as the disposal of the body of the
baby. The reporter went to the crematorium and the documents there
showed that the hospital did not sent over any bodies this past month.
So did the baby just evaporate into thin air? This was just a series
of question marks.

Based upon the unique nature of this case
as well as the pervasive unprofessional and unethical conduct at hospitals,
the article titled <In search of the lost child> was featured at my
newspaper (which I will not name here). There was going to be
follow-up investigations, but then I received instructions to cease and desist.

It is no secret that the media "are
collectively silent." The funny thing was that right underneath
my long article in the newspaper, there was an advertisement from that
provincial-level hospital in bright red headlines right below.
According to information, the hospital spent 200,000 yuan to have their
advertisement in the "special report" section. It was
obviously ridiculous to criticize the hand that feeds you. The
follow-up reports were aborted.

The advertising clients' investment amount
and attitude are obviously a bargaining chip over the investigative
journalism. It is an invisible shield. Clearly, I don't imply
that every advertiser is a crook, but advertising is achieving the dual goal
of promotion and protection.

At a time when there is heated battle for
advertising, "collective silence" is a disease. This kind of
non-journalism will become more intense as media become more
commercialized. When the media benefit financially, they lose their
voice; meanwhile the media that did not benefit will "go wild on
the attack" in order to force you to make them the offer to "go
silent" as well.

To say something that is frank but
disheartening (which the reporters on the society beat must know), which
newspaper editorial department does not have a list of advertising clients
who must be "protected"? These are the taboo zones for the
reporters.

[046] The
Mystery of Kenneth Lee Rothey (Continued) (08/15/2007)
In The
Mystery of Kenneth Lee Rothey, the story was that an American named
Kenneth Lee Rothey living in Huangshi (Hubei) was lauded by Chinese media
for his civic spirit (e.g. mobilizing people to pick up trash in the
streets, etc). Meanwhile, an American named Kenneth Lee Rothey is an
internationally wanted fugitive. These two Kenneth Lee Rothey's seemed
to share an amazing list of coincidences in terms of name, date of birth,
place of birth, occupation, familiarity with putonghua, hair color and even
looks.

At the Interpol
website, here are two photographs of the wanted criminal Kenneth Lee
Rothey:

Meanwhile, a sharp-eyed Chinese netizen had noted that there was an article
at chhan.com
on July 29, 2005 titled: "Rothey: The American lawyer who fell in love
with Huang Shi." There were two accompanying photographs:

Holy crap! The Interpol photographs were cropped from these two
newspaper photographs! Can there be any doubt left?

P.S. One Chinese Internet forum post said, "Why does a piece of
American trash come to China and be praised as a modern American Lei
Feng?"

We have 162 million Internet users in our
country, being second in the world in terms of total numbers.

On January 23 this year, the Chinese
Communist Party Central Political Bureau held its 38th group study session
and the main theme was: "The development of global network technology
and the construction and administration of Internet culture in China."

More and more information shows that our
times demand our leaders to learn about the Internet and be able to direct
it. For the various levels of government party officials, the Internet
is a new platform to serve the people as well as to understand public
opinion.

"The Safety Supervisory Department has
the responsibility to investigate all safety-related stories in newspapers
and on the Internet. On June 16, State Safe Production Supervisory
Department director Li Yizhong said so at the Second "Safe
Development" Forum.

A short while ago, Shanxi provincial
governor Yu Youjun summarized the "illegal brick kilns" affair by
saying that one of the important cause as well as lesson is that they did
not deftly understand the public opinion on the Internet and in the media
and therefore did not make timely accurate responses. "On one
occasion, I called more than a dozen provincial and local officials. I
asked them, 'Did you read the Internet reports?' They all said
no." It can be said that the case got a lot worse because the
officials were ignorant about the Internet. Therefore he asked all
Shanxi departments to pay high attention to Internet opinions and improve
their ability to respond to and solve problems in this Internet age.

Central Party School professor Shen
Baoxiang said that the Internet is challenging the government and party
officials to have new ideas, to face up to public opinion and to come up
with new ways to do things. From SARS to the Songhua River pollution
to the "illegal brick kilns," people can see that the government's
crisis management efforts will be much less effective (or even
counterproductive) when they try to seal, block and cover up. Instead,
they must disclose information immediately and stay ahead of public opinion
to be pro-active.

[044] TVBS
Reporter Gets Punched (08/15/2007) (TVBS)
Taiwan president Chen Shui-bian's daughter Chen Hsing-yu was reported to be
moving back into her parents' house which would represent a de facto
separation from her husband Chao Chien-ming. So when she showed up for
work at the dental clinic yesterday, there was many reporters waiting to
speak to her. She was accompanied by 6 to 8 aides from the National
Security Bureau. A TVBS reporter was punched in the chest by one of
those aides. The reporter said: "I was just following them.
I was not endangering anyone. But he turned around and punched
me. I fell on the ground. I have some difficulty in breathing
and I cannot stand steady. There will always be some jostling, but he
owes me an apology if he punched me deliberately!" The National
Security Bureau is investigating.

[043] The
Zhangjiang Government Spams The Citizens (08/15/2007) (Shenzhen
News) Spam as applied to Email means Unsolicited Bulk Email
("UBE"). Recently, huge rainstorms have struck the cities of
Zhanjiang, Maoming and Meizhou courtesy of tropical storm Pabuk. On
August 11, a rumor about "Huge rainstorm in Leizhou Peninsula began to
spread like a plague in those areas. At around 4am on August 12,
afterwads, a rumor began to be circulated in Zhanjiang about "Huge
earthquake will be triggered by the rainstorm in Zhanjiang."

For example, at around 5am, Yingli town mayor Li Qiaoyan received calls from
retired cadres to ask about whether an earthquake is imminent. When he
got up at 6am and went to work, he realized that there was a serious
problem. At the town plaza, there were people standing around because
they had heard about "the huge rainstorm in Leizhou will trigger off an
earthquake." Li Qianyan immediately used the town's public
announcement system to declare that this was a rumor.

Meanwhile, the Zhanjiang Earthquake Bureau and the Zhanjiang Weather
Observatory also learned about the rumor. At 8:25am, it decided to use
the Weather Observatory's SMS emergency notification system. At
8:30am, the technical service center began to set up the system. At
8:41am, the rumor-dispelling SMS began to go out at the rate of 500,000 per
hour to the 1,400,000 mobile telephones in the city. The message said:
"The Zhanjiang city Earthquake Bureau and Weather Observatory reminds
you: there has not been any earthquakes recently even though earthquake
rumors began to appear at 4am this morning in the Leizhou, Wushi, Beihuo and
Tanduo of Zhanjiang city. Please do not be afraid!"

At 10:30am, the Guangdong province weather observatory issued a second SMS
through the emergency SMS notification system: "The Zhanjiang city
weather observatory gives this special reminder: the weather will be
unstable for the two days, with showers and heavy rains. Please be
prepared and call 12121 anytime for the latest weather report."

Within a short period of just over 3 hours, 2.8 million SMS were sent out.

Rumors are most afraid when the government
publishes the information. As Milton Friedman said, "Let the
truth fight against untruth. Who has ever seen the truth lose in an
free and open battle?" The 2.8 million SMS used in Zhanjiang to
dispel the rumors was an example of success.

The first that the government should do
about rumors is to release all the relevant information and compete against
the rumors. They should not do what was done in Jinan, where the
female netizen "Red Diamond Empire" was arrested. In that
case, the first thing that the government did was to figure out who spread
the rumor and go after the person. When a government goes about the
rumormongers, they are wasting valuable time in dispelling the rumors
themselves and they are only increasing suspicion that there are secrets.

In emergency public incident, the
government officials need to listen to the voices of the people and then
they can get instant reading on the content and movement of the
rumors. Rumors only cause damage within a certain period.
Aftewards, the rumors disappear but they will have already damaged the
public interests as well as trust in the government. In modern
society, the government has many ways releasing information: newspapers,
radio, television, Internet and SMS. The government should use all the
rapid communication methods to race ahead of the rumors. To lock down
information and apply high pressure to prevent people from talking, or to
adopt a laissez-faire policy with respect to rumors would be the natural
enemy of the public interest and the best friend of the rumors. This
is the greatest revelation from the rumor-cleaning SMS incident in
Zhanjiang.

[042] Hong
Kong By The Numbers (08/15/2007) (HKU
POP) (1,013 persons interviewed August 6-10 about their rating
and support for Hong Kong SAR Chief Executive Donald Tsang and the other
principal government officials)

In view of the public incidents such as the clearing of Queen's Pier and the
demonstrators by the metal workers, what are the support levels for the
relevant officials:

Secretary of Justice Y.L. Wong74%: Vote of confirence
2%: Vote of no confidence

Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee79%: Vote of confidence
2%: Vote of no confidence

Secretary for Development Carrie Lam55%: Vote of confidence
9%: Vote of no confidence

Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung55%: Vote of confidence
5%: Vote of no confidence

Cooment: In fact, Ambrose Lee, Carrie Lam and Matthew Cheung are the three
most popular Directors of Bureaux under the accountability system. In
the case of Carrie Lam, her approval went from 48% to 55% for +7% (while her
disapproval went from 4% to 9%) after her appearance at the Queen's Pier
forums.

[041] Hong
Kong By The Numbers (08/14/2007) (Ming
Pao; also through Yahoo)
(1,343 persons were interviewed by self-service computerized dialing on
August 10-13. Of these 299 lived on Hong Kong Island and they were
asked about their probable choice in the Hong Kong Legislative Council
by-election to replace the late DAB chairman Ma Lik)

[040] China
By The Numbers (08/14/2007) (KDNet)
China does not have many public opinion polls (or at least ones that are
published). The following is a poll of 1,000 citizens in Beijing,
Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shenyang, Harbin, Dalian, Zhengzhou, Chengdu
and Wuhan interviewed by telephone by the Social Survey Institute of China.

- 92.6% think that Taiwan's referendum to join the United Nations constitutes
"Taiwan independence"
- 76.5% think that Taiwan's referendum crossed the bottomline with respect
to cross-strait relationship
- 64.8% support the use of military force to solve the Taiwan problem if
necessary

[Comment: Is this for real? I don't know. As indicated above,
there are not many public opinion surveys in China, much less those about
'sensitive' topics. But are the results surprising? Probably
not.]

[039] The
TV Host Did Not Wear Trousers (08/14/2007) (Wenxue
City) According to Chinese netizen 'huangchong84,' he was
watching a CCTV soccer program when he spotted the host Duan Xuan wearing a
sports coat, a shirt but shorts underneath. The netizen used a digital
camera to record this television screen which shows the bare knee of Duan
Xuan.
CCTV has not responded to this allegation of unprofessionalism, not does it
seem likely to do so. According to an industry professional, the
studio is usally very warm from the lights and the hosts are often 'roasted'
when they have to wear formal clothing. Therefore, many hosts may wear
shorts and slippers underneath. While this does not seem right, the
producers consider that the condition of the host must affect performance
and therefore allowed this to happen. In this case, the sports program
goes on for two hours and it may be that Duan Xuan slipped up and showed a
leg.

[038] Ma
Ying-jeou Is Acquitted (08/14/2007) (Taiwan
News) Wrapping up four
months of trial, Taipei District Court Tuesday acquitted former Taipei mayor
Ma Ying-jeou of embezzlement charges, saying he had no intention to pocket
some NT$11 million fund that was the mayor's perk.

(China
Times) The Taipei District Court believed that the special
fees were in fact a perk for officials. The court also believed that
Ma Ying-jeou had no subjective intention to profit illegally and he did not
employ trickery to gain the money.

As for the prosecutor's assertion that Ma Ying-jeou admitted that the
special fees are public money, the court believed that the prosecutor
distorted what Ma said. During the interview with Ma, the prosecutor
posed certain hypothetical questions and Ma responded to these hypothetical
scenarios. Ma clearly had a different understanding about the special
fees. Therefore, the court did not believe that Ma admitted that the
special fees were public money. Since Ma did not subjectively realize
that "special fees are public money," intentionality to commit
crime could not be established.

As for the inaccuracy of the prosecutor's transcript of the interview with
witness Wu Li-ju, the court believed that this transcript does not qualify
as court evidence. The court believed that when the prosecutor posed
hypothetical questions to Wu and she replied with "Hmm, hmm" and
"Yes, yes," those are not meaningful answers because Wu could be
either indicating that she understood the question or she agreed with the
premise (see Comment
200707#091). Since the prosecutor's transcript also deviated
from the audio tape with selective omissions, it cannot be admitted as
evidence.

The court also pointed out that the special fees had been in existence since
1973 and was a perk for the officials to use flexibly.

The court did not believe that Ma had the intention to commit a crime and he
did not use trickery to deceive the accountants and auditors.
According to the law, Ma could not be "using his job position to
embezzle money." Therefore, he was acquitted.

(TVBS)
DPP legislator Wang Shih-Cheng said: "I must say with pain that the
judiciary is dead. The judiciary in our nation is dead. What
happened to right or wrong? The embezzlement by Ma Ying-jeou is
obvious in the case of the special fees. The facts are obvious and the
evidence is clear. If acquittal can occur in such a case, the court is
unqualified to find anyone guilty. Every embezzler now in jail should
be released immediately. Compared to how Ma Ying-jeou was handled, how
can this be fair and just? The judicial system in Taiwan is
dead. I am holding a funeral for the Taiwan judiciary."

(ETToday)
DPP legislator Hsieh Hsin-ni found the verdict unacceptable. She said
that anyone who detests corruption cannot accept the innocent verdict on Ma
Ying-jeou. She said that she realized very early on that Ma Ying-jeou
will be found innocent, because the judges were treating this legal case as
a political matter. The fact that Ma Ying-jeou stuffed state money
into his pocket was enough to establish corruption. She suggested that
if Ma Ying-jeou could be found innocent, then all those public servants who
had been previously convicted for corruption should come out and ask for
state compensation!

(ETToday)
DPP legislator Kao Chien-chih: "Today was truly the darkest day in the
judicial history of Taiwan. This also proved that there are
Nationalist running dogs among the judges of Taiwan." DPP
legislator Hsieh Hsin-ni asid: "We clearly know that the courts are run
by the Nationalists."

A total of 1,340 people, 367 of
whom are mentally handicapped, have been rescued from forced labor since the
notorious brick kiln forced labor scandal came to light in June, a joint
investigation group reported on Monday afternoon.

During the crackdown on illegal
kilns, mines and workshops, 277,000 work units with 12.67 million workers
were inspected, said Sun Baoshu, Vice Minister of Labor and Social Security
and head of the investigation group, which represents the Ministry of Labour
and Social Security, the Ministry of Public Security and the All-China
Federation of Trade Unions.

Police found that 67,000, or 24.2
percent of the kilns, mines and workshops inspected nationwide were
operating without licenses.

They registered 185,000 cases
during the inspection, more than half of which concerned employing workers
without contracts and, in 37 percent of the cases, the owner failed to
provide workers with social security insurance.

One hundred and forty seven
people were arrested and 98,000 work units that used uncontracted workers
were ordered to sign the contracts with 1.5 million workers and pay overdue
salaries and compensation totaling 130 million yuan (17 million U.S.
dollars).

69 persons were prosecuted, and
96 party cadres and civil servants were disciplined.

On June 5, Dahe Net published
<400 fathers cry bloody tears for help> asserting that 400 fathers
were seeking their lost children. The public security bureau contained
the author Xin Yanhua to obatin the relevant information. It turned
out that she did not have the list of 400 fathers, she did not personally
participate in rescue efforts, she did not investigate on location and she
did not collect detailed data on these fathers. The 400 figure came
from the lists compiled by several of the parents. By cross-checking
the lists, the public security bureau found out that these was a great deal
of overlap.

In the report, <The Evil Road
of the Illegal People>, there was an 8-year-old workring at a brick
kiln. This report was cited by national and international media.
The public security bureau investigated the case and found out that the
8-year-old was a 12-year-old who followed his father around. Seven
years ago, the mother left after a divorce, and so the son must follow the
father wherever he works. In this case, the 12-year-old was playing at
the work site while his father worked.

On July 28, an essay on Jingchu
Net reported that 400 migrant workers from Enshi (Hubei) were waiting for
rescue in Shanxi brick kilns. Based upon investigation, there were 851
migrant workers from Hubei working in Shanxi brick kilns, of which 531 were
from Enshi and worked at two brick kilns through introduction by relatives
and friends. The public security bureau investigated the two brick
kilns and found that the papers were in order but no forced labor.

[036] Taiwan
International TV Channel (08/13/2007) For background, see Taipei
Times. The following is an Apple
Daily opinion column.

The Government Information Office announced
recently that on account of the lack of international support for Taiwan and
the long-term international blockade by China, they intend to invest NT$2 to
3 billion to establish an unofficial "Taiwan International
Channel" in the manner of other international television channels such
as BBC and Al Jazeera. The channel is expected to be established
formally next year.

Using satellite television for
international diplomacy is indeed an international trend. According to
information, at least 28 nations around the world have international
channels that are shown overseas. In the Asia-Pacific region, Japan,
South Korea, mainland China, Myanmar, Singapore and others have
international channels.

Yet, if the purpose of the international
channel is to break down the predicament of being internatinoally blockaded
audio-visually, then it is shorted-sighted as well overly optimistic.
Many of the international channels cannot go beyond the selling of national
images. Most of their news contents are either translations of
domestic news or just international news segments taken from overseas or
domestic news agencies. This type of assembled content lacks any point
of view and do not meet the needs of overseas viewers. They are as
effective as advertisements that are instantly forgotten.

But even if the Government Information
Office "gets the inspired idea" of seriously emulating the
examples of the two well-known and influential international channels (BBC
and Al Jazeera), they are ignoring two problems.

First, any influential international
television channel cannot be restricted in promoting or selling a single
national image. The reason why the news on these channels are adopted
by the international media and their views can affect international opinion
is precisely because they will not service designated political
positions. Based upon humanitarianism and professionalism, BBC
famously took an opposite position to the Blair cabinet over the war in
Iraq. Although Al Jazeera has a "strongly favored Middle East
viewpoint," its policy is to be "situationally objective" in
order to be insulated from any single national or government interest.
The Minister of Information has said that the purpose of the Taiwan
international channel is to oppose China and break open the international
blockade. It is self-contradiction to have such a clearly defined
political mission while claiming to have an independent channel.

Secondly, it is not easy to have a
sustainable international channel. It requires the long-term
investment of money and people with clear policies and production
resources. BBC World is a commercial subsidiary of the BBC
group. It relies on overseas advertising revenue and cable/satellite
subscription fees. It has a global staff and resources established
over a long period of time, with the excellent BBC news brand to support
it. Yet, it still lost 12 million pounds last year. Al Jazeera
relies on advertising revenue, but it is still a losing business that
requires several tens of millions of American dollars in aid from the Qatar
government. Whether they make money or not, they at least have the
goal and means to continue business no matter what.

Meanwhile, the international channel
planned by the Government Information Office will receive NT$2 to 3 billion
in the first year and it will begin operating within one year. But
what happens after the first year? If they want to wait and see, then
it will surely turn into a catastrophe.

If the Government Information Office did
not forget, they proposed a public television plan two years ago with the
stated goal of having an overseas international channel after establishing a
public television group. This is a plan that is better suited for the
stated goals. The Government Information Office has now abandoned that
plan. Apart from proving that it is incompetent, this also means that
either they want to have a different structure which is easier to control or
else they are just signing checks for election purposes.

[035] Xiao
Juan Gets Down On Her Knees (08/13/2007) (Southern
Metropolis Daily) This is another celebrated case in which a
female netizen named Xiao Juan solicited money for medical treatment on the
grounds that her own family was thoroughly impoverished. A netizen
named Bafenzhai, who has a reputation for organizing charitable campaigns,
took up her cause. In time, certain questions were raised and
Bafenzhai and the Oeeee.com forum felt that they need to investigate.

So in the company of the Southern Metropolis Daily and other media, they set
off to visit Xiao Juan's 'destitute' home in Jialing town, Qixian county,
Shanxi province. They walked in the house and found a plot that is
about 200 square meters in size with a small vegetable garden with all sorts
of vegetables being grown. The concrete house had one living room and
two bedrooms over about 100 square meters. In Xiao Juan's room, the
reporter saw electronic equipment such as television, refrigerator, stereo
etc. The furniture and the decorations suggest that this is a
middle-class family. At the village office, someone said that Xia
Juan's family is upper-middle class in this village. Xiao Juan's
sister and brother-in-law works at a glass factory nearby while her father
is a farmer. Sometimes, the brother-in-law and the father helps people
transport stuff. "Their house was built around 1997 for around
50,000 yuan. At the time, it was quite a feat. Ten years later,
some people here still live in hovels." Bafenzhai said: "We
were conned." Compared to other people that he had helped people,
Xiao Juan's family situation was "hundreds and thousands of times
better."

That evening, Xiao Juan and her mother went to the hotel to see Bafenzhai to
meet again. Bafenzhai wanted to confirm other information that he
has. He had found out that Xiao Juan was concealing the whereabouts of
some of the donated money. During the process, the formerly
cooperative Xiao Juan suddenly became emotional and refused to answer any
more questions. She said that Bafenzhai hurt her feelings.
"If I continue to answer, it is like jumping into a whirlpool.
How can I get out?" So she broke down in tears and refused to
answer anymore.

At this point, the mother got down on her knees and Xiao Juan followed as
well. The mother said: "I represent our entire famiy to kneel
down to thank all those kindhearted people who has helped Xiao Juan. I
am eternally grateful to them! We have been wronged in all that has
happened, but we are unable to explain. The meeting today here will
stop. Xiao Juan cannot bear this anymore. There is so much
pressure on her ..." Then the two left the hotel.

Bafenzhai expected that the meeting would fail. He said that Xiao Juan
was "putting on an act." According to him, he had already
many details about the matter beyond the family situation. Although
some of these have not been verified with Xiao Juan, he will publish the
results of his investigation on the Internet.

It has been over twenty days since
"7.18" and Jinan is recovering from the disruptions due to that
rainstorm. Both the government and the people want the pain to
subside, but they obviously have opinion differences on how to heal.
The government has not published the list of victims, they have not
conducted any public memorial services and they have given no sign of
offering apology or compensation. They obviously want the matter to be
quietly forgotten. Some family members of the victims want fair
treatment. Last week, the family members of two victims got three
Beijing lawyers to sue the local government.

Earlier rumors said that the three lawyers
went to Jinan on behalf of the netizen "Red Diamond Empire" who
was detained for "spreading rumors." Right now, "Red
Diamond Empire" appears to have voluntarily or involuntarily chosen to
keep in step with the government because she is silent as well. But it
seemed impossible that silent forgetting will work in this case. The
Ginza Shopping Plaza is presenting renovating and will re-open shortly to
the public. But the public will not forget so easily.

The Ginza Shopping Plaza is one of the
victims of the rainstorm and it sustained considerable financial
losses. Even more unfortunately, it became the target of public
condemnation because it called the police to complain about "Red
Diamond Empire." When it first called the police, its motive was
to protect the corporate image. In the words of its chairman Wang
Renquan, certain netizens were spreading rumors that there were drowning
deaths at the plaza and "caused a great deal of negative impact on the
corporation." He did not imagine that the image of the
corporation would get a whole lot worse after the detention of "Red
Diamond Empire," to the point of having an Internet public campaign to
boycott the place. In the even longer term, the "Red Diamond
Empire" affair will become a classical case in any discussion of
freedom of expression in China, and the Ginza Shopping Plaza will have a
permanent negative image with respect to this case.

Normally, when a shopping plaza finds that
its image is being tarnished by rumors, the first option is to tell the
truth to the public and use transparent information and sincerity to win the
public's trust. The second option is to sue in court and let the judge
decide whether this was defamation. For a retail corporation that
faces the public, the second option is not a good choice and should be
avoided if at all possible. Yet, the Ginza Shopping Plaza skipped both
of these options and chose a third option -- they called the police.
Please notice that they did it not because the rumors caused or may cause
public disorder, but because they want to protect the corporate image.
This is strange enough, but what is even stranger is that the police
actually detained "Red Diamond Empire" who was one of the participants
in the Internet discussions. The story gets even stranger in that when
public opinion was roiling over the police action, the Ginza Shopping Plaza
ignored the public feelings and openly supported the police. Wang
Renquan said, "The detention of this netizen by the police is not a
violation of the civil right to freedom of expression." Faced
with the Internet talk of a public boycott of the Ginza Shopping Plaza, is
this how the chairman protects the corporate image?

In the public relations crisis, the Ginza
Shopping Plaza relied on public authority (to the point of even using it to
intimidate the public), they ignored public sentiments (to the point of not
bothering to communicate with the public), they used silent evasion to deal
with the boiling public opinion and they hoped that people will forget --
the characteristics shown by the Ginza Shopping Plaza in this incident are
so similar to the bureaucratic style in government departments ...

[033] The
Metal Workers of Hong Kong (08/12/2007) (SCMP; no link) Metal
workers on strike for a fourth day brought traffic in Hong Kong's central
business district to a standstill as they faced off with police ...
Yesterday, around 500 marched from a building site in To Kwa Wan to the Star
Ferry pier in Tsim Sha Tsui, crossed the harbour and went to the Central
Government Offices. When labour minister Matthew Cheung Kin-chung did not
respond to their demand for a meeting, about 100 of them went to the nearby
junction of Ice House Street and Queen's Road Central, blocking traffic and
attempting to stage a sit-down protest ... Yesterday's
rain-soaked protest brought traffic to a halt in the heart of Central as
some of the workers spilled onto the streets. "Raise our salary,
cut working hours," the workers shouted. Some broke through a
police line and mounted a sit-down protest. Police cordoned off the area.
Traffic was disrupted for two hours from mid-afternoon. Nearby shops
pulled down their metal grilles when some of the workers sat outside their
entrances to shelter from the rain.

What is the purpose of this tactic?
One theory would be to make the public angry with all the
inconvenience. Then the public will seek information about the
workers' issues and they will sympathize with the worker. This
groundswell of public opinion will force the government to lean on the
construction industry to settle with the workers. The other theory is
that the public will be angry with all the inconvenience and direct their
rage against the workers. There will be public demand for the police
to enforce the law and the government not to succumb to blackmailers who are
trying to hold the public hostage. The construction industry will be
very happy with this result. So which theory happened? What is
the public opinion? If not, what are the newspapers saying?

Apple
Daily only has some photographs, it reported the events but it gave
no opinion.

Ming Pao
had an editorial that is reminescent of the law-and-order speeches of
Richard Nixon/Spiro Agnew.

Some metal workers were negotiatingfor pay
increases and work hour reduction with the construction industry. When
their demands were not fully met, they chose to disrupt public order in
order to force the government to interced and pressure the construction
industry. It is the right for metal workers to ask for pay increases
and work hour reduction. But most citizens will not agree with using
the disruption of public order as the means.

Yesterday, about 700 metal workers arrived
at the Central Government Offices and demanded to see labour minister
Matthew Cheung. When they did not get their wish, they blocked Queens
Road Central. Although this was a Saturday afternoon, nineteen bus
lines had to be re-routed and many citizens were inconvenienced.
Citizens criticized these metal workers and expressed their disapproval.

On the day before yesterday when the Number
8 typhoon signal was hoisted, citizens were rushing home. About 300
metal workers attempted entered to enter the Yau Ma Ti MTR station and
wanted to go to the Central Government Offices to petition. The police
blocked off portions of the street and the MTR station to prevent the
workers from entering. Traffic fell into chaos in the area, and the
citizens who were inconvenienced were also complaining.

... In recent days, many labor
organizations and legislators have interceded. There is no evidence
that the increasingly sharp actions of the workers were due to incitement by
others ... Based upon what happened on the past two days, the metal workers
appear to have lose their direction. There is nothing wrong with labor
unions or politicians helping the workers get their reasonable rights.
But it is wrong for people to incite the workers to achieve their goals in a
way that is detrimental to citizen interests and thus derive political
protests during the process. Society will not tolerate it.

This case will continue to develop.
The two sides will meet against tomorrow. If the metal workers calm
down and resolve this matter through rational discussions, that would be
ideal. But if some workers continue to ignore the law and create
trouble, we believe that the police should not tolerate this anymore and
they must seriously enforce the law to stop this lawless phenomenon.
In recent years, there have been frequent assemblies to cause trouble; after
a while, some people think that if they have numbers, noise and tough talk,
they can get anything they want. It is unacceptable for public
authority to go missing. The rule of law is the cornerstone of Hong
Kong and it is a core value of Hong Kong. The government should
enforce the law in a timely, appropriate and reasonable manner, so that all
of Hong Kong will value the rational and orderly environment.

The
Sun has the front page cover with the headline: "Central out of
control."
Here are the photos:

This was a simple labor dispute until it
became a political wrestling match among the Hong Kong Confederation of
Trade Unions, The Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, the Neighborhood
& Worker's Service Centre and "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung to
win votes.

The pro-Beijing Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions accused the
pan-democratic trade unions of "hijacking" the workers.
Their Metal Workers Union (part of HKCTU) secretary-general Fung Kin-chau
said that negotiations have been going on but the Hong Kong Federation of
Trade Unions and Leung Kwok-hung "jumped the queue" and
"seized the attention of the cameras" for political reasons.
He said that they had nothing to do with the workers showing up to
demonstrate at Government House on Friday because they were negotiating hard
at the time. The excessive action of the workers had nothing to do
with them.

The pan-democratic unions said that they entered because the HKCTU was
ineffective in its negotations. The assistant to Leung Yiu-chung, the
Legislative Councilor from the Neighborhood & Worker's Service Centre,
said that nothing has come out of the negotiations held between the HKCTU
and the industry representatives. They received a request for
assistance from the metal workers and therefore they took collective action
to apply pressure on the industry. The blocking of traffic on Ice
House Street yesterday was a spontaneously action. "The union
cannot control what individual workers do. This does not pertain to
us."

(SCMP)

Construction Industry Bar-bending Workers'
Union, a subsidiary of the Federation of Trade Unions (FTU) which has been
representing the workers in the negotiations, said it did not support the
actions taken on Saturday. "There
were some irresponsible unions who provoked the workers into taking extreme
action. We were unable to stop them and I must apologise for that," the
union's chairman, Luk Kwan-ngai, said.

However, the construction site workers'
branch of the Confederation of Trade Unions (CTU) said Saturday's events
were not planned. The branch's deputy organising secretary, Shek Lam-sang,
blamed a lack of organisation which resulted in the workers being left on
the street for hours. "We were not the organisers. We were called in to
help when workers' felt that their requests were not answered."

“Freedom is not a concept in which people
can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about
authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to
cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.”

(Translation: You are visiting NanfangDaily.com. Thank you for
visiting here! The page that you want to visit no nonger exists!)

If you want to read the original forum posts in Chinese, I have preserved
them in "The
Nude Town Party Secretary Dropped Dead While On Duty". This
page is also available at any number of Chinese forums such as ReporterHome,
so the deletion at Nanfang Daily will only make the case more
famous/infamous. I believe that this case is truly as remarkable as some
of the black Eastern European humor against censorship. I urge you to
read it carefully. It is real/unreal/surreal.

P.S. The entire Hangzhou Information Net (hzxx114.com) has gone down.

[030] The
Mystery of Kenneth Lee Rothey (08/11/2007) (Sina.com)
According to Hubei Daily News, the 68-year old American Kenneth Lee Rothey
came to China in 2004 and he settled down in the Huang Shi, Hubei province
and adopted the name Lu Qi (which literally means Roadside Beggar). As
retold in many media reports, Lu Qi picks up garbage thrown on the ground of
others and puts it into trash bins. "When you are invited to a
friend's home, do you throw banana peel on the floor?" Lu Qi
often asks this question. When the answer is "No," Lu Qi
would continue to ask: "Huang Shi is our home, and its streets are our
living room. Why would we throw garbage on the floor of our living
room?" A Huang Shi citizen said, "As a Huang Shi resdient, I
am embarrassed to see an old foreigner bending over frequently to pick up
garbage. We should do something ourselves!"

On July 31, CCTV's program <Social Records> reported on Kenneth Lee
Rothey and his deeds.

But after the program was aired, someone pointed out Kenneth Lee Rothey is a
wanted criminal in the United States. Here are his photographs at the Interpol
website:

Kenneth Rothey, 64, a local immigration
attorney and owner of Rothey Law Firm in Houston, was indicted in March on
charges of visa fraud, money laundering and encouraging Chinese nationals to
enter the U.S. illegally. If convicted, Rothey faces up to five years
imprisonment for each of the nine counts on charges of encouraging unlawful
immigration, 12 counts of visa fraud, and various money laundering charges
relating to the financial transactions conducted with the proceeds of
$267,000 of money paid to him by the Chinese nationals.

... The indictment alleges that Rothey,
Golfarini and Chapa filed frivolous immigration petitions by creating the
illusion that there was an affiliation between specific Chinese and U.S.
companies. The three were charged with sending fictitious immigration
petitions to the Texas Service Center (TSC), which is part of the Office of
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

The defendants purportedly employed these
Chinese nationals at one of eight local businesses as intra-company
transferees or executives. They completed fictitious immigration forms and
acted as petitioners on behalf of the Chinese nationals. After entering the
United States, those seeking to gain employment also thought they could
ultimately adjust their status to remain in the U.S. Each Chinese
national was willing to pay as much as $100,000 for immigrant visas and work
authorization documents.

So is Lu Qi the wanted criminal suspect
Kenneth Lee Rothey?

(CCTV)
The CCTV reporter said that Lu Qi had denied that he was not the wanted
suspect. Lu Qi had shown that reporter certain identification papers,
which contain the same names and birthdays as the wanted suspect. When
the CCTV reporter spoke to Lu Qi, he said that he neither admitted nor denied
that he was the wanted suspect. Lu Qi said that someone in Guangzhou has
been stalking him since 2005. Lu Qi said that he monitored his blog and
found out that two persons (including from from Shanghai) reads his blog every
day and they keep attacking him. He said, "These attacks are
useless. The Chinese government will not expel me because of what some
nobodies say about me. I am not afraid to confront the chages in the
United States either. I am a good friend with a senior-ranking police
officer in Hubei province, and he has never investigated me."

According to Lu Qi's Chiense wife: "We entered China from Hong Kong in
December 2005. My husband filed formally for retirement last year.
The US government cares about my hushband. We receive social security
pension payments ever ymonth. No one has sued him since he retired in
August 2004 until he entered China. The Texas and Utah Lawyers
Associations were the supervisory agencies before he required. They can prove the case,
and they are the most qualified people. The
American legal system is relatively perfect and does not convict anyone based
upon speculations and rumors."

[029] Reporters
Remember Ma Lik (08/11/2007) In May this year, Hong Kong DAB
party chairman met with the press and spoke about the Tiananmen Square
incident. Many of the newspapers present published nothing about those
comments, but Apple Daily and Ming Pao did. The two reporters' blog
entries about that occassion are at Ma
Lik's Comments on June Fourth. Ma Lik just passed away this week
due to colon cancer. Here are what those two reporters' memorial
pieces about Ma Lik:

Regret usually comes after a loss occurs
and before the fear settles in.

In 2005, a certain squeaky voice that had
been around for the last several years went missing among the press covering
the two Congresses. But he "even" noticed that. When
he returned to Hong Kong, he asked me: "Why didn't you go up
there?" I told him everything about my mother: Her operation was
pending and I could not leave her.

Perhaps because he had the same problem, he
was really concerned. Over time, he fed me all sorts of information
about diet and cures for cancer, and he told me how to prevent
recurrence. Whenever I see him afterwards, he would follow up about
the condition of my mother. When he heard that she was alright, he
would nod and tell us to keep working hard.

After trying the mythic fungus 靈芝孢子,
the resistance improved. So he called me immediately to buy some for
my mother. He said that 2046 was the real thing. At first, I
ignored him because the fungus was too expensive. After he reminded me
enough times, I actually bought some for my mother to try. That was
how the mythic fungus 靈芝孢子
at home came about.

When I went to work for another newspaper
(note: Apple Daily), I told him about the "bad news" inside the
Legislative Council building. As expected, he knitted his brow and
turned his mouth up. He asked me why. To make money, to change
the scenery, I told him more or less truthfully. But you won't be able
to gather news in mainland China anymore? So once again he
"even" perceived my greatest misgiving. I said that I needed
the money and I had no choice. Since the answer seemed genuine, he did
not probe any further. He added that I can always contact him as
before. When I heard that, I was moved.

He kept his word. When I asked him
for interviews afterwards, he always accepted. I know that that are
certain obstinate people in his party who were not happy with the fact that
he did not distinguish friends and enemies among the media. Therefore,
each time, he reminded me: "Please be careful. Do not distort
because I could be in big trouble ..." I am grateful that he used
his actions to demonstrate his trust in me.

Life at Zhudao Hotel was very boring.
During our chats, I said several times that I would visit him when I was
free. Each time, he was delighted and said that there are many small
restaurants on the main street that are worth exploring. He also
listed some places that should be visited. Regrettably, this promise
was never realized: a single sentence "June 4th was not a
massacre" drew us apart by a long, long distance ...

He was a good person rarely seen in
politics. He was seldom conniving and scheming. I hope that
those people who took his June 4th comments to heart can spare him now that
he is gone.

May his soul rest in peace. May all
those cancer sufferers be healthy.

We only met once in May after returning
from Beijing to Hong Kong. That was the tea session that I would
rather not have gone to.

The tea session was originally scheduled on
April 11, which was my birthday, but it was ultimately canceled. The
date was changed again and again until it took place on May 15.
Sometimes, I wondered if the tea session had not been re-scheduled, then
those unkind words might have stayed inside you, the citizens would not have
rose up to deplore you, your DAB brothers would not have whined about you,
and you ...

would not have left us so soon.

In 2003, circumstances caused me to become
a political newspaper reproter. I had not yet settled down when I
witnessed the big losses suffered by the DAB in the district council
elections. You became the DAB chairman and that was how we got to know
each other. You had scolded me, who was just a rookie reporter, over
the telephone: "How can you even asks these questions? How can
you be a reporter?" When I handed my business card to you in
person later, you said: "I remember you! I scolded you
before!"

Yet we got to know afterwards and we had
photographs taken at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. During the two Congresses
each year, we would "barge" into your hotel room to chat. On
one occasion, we even advised you not to run for the Legislative Council but
you ought to continue to run for the National People's Congress in order to
retain your current "medical coverage." When you went to
seek medical care in Guangzhou, we visited you privately. You opened
the door and the first thing that you said was: "You still come even
though it is raining so hard?"

So that was how the four years were.

[028] No
Data, No Speech Rights (08/09/2007) As previously stated (see Hong
Kong Without Numbers), I found it unacceptable to
whisper: "I've got a survey but I cannot show it to you. However, I
can tell you that the results support my actions." It is simply
unbelievable that you should have a stack of favorable numbers but you want
to withhold them from the public. If you withhold them, it means that
you must be hiding something. The only issue left is just what you are
trying to hide!

Today, we have a leak on a KMT public opinion poll in Taiwan. This is
an internal KMT poll from which partial results were leaked to selected
media. Ordinarily, I would have passed on it (note: I actually typed
'pissed' instead of 'passed' at first!). But this one is informative
only to the extent that they showed what they cared about. So forget
about the numbers themselves, but focus on the items that were released ( as
compared to those that were not).

(Ming Pao)
Recently, KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou went into the deep-green
base of Yunlin, Jiayi and Tainan for his "long stay"
campaign. The KMT chairman Wu Den-yih said that the KMT internal
public opinion poll showed good results. Overall, the support for Ma
Ying-jeou across all of Taiwan rose from 55.7% to 58.2% while DPP candidate
Frank Hsieh's support dropped from 44.2% to 41.8%.

Wu Den-yih said that this public opinion poll was a KMT internal
confidential study which has never been disclosed before. There were
9,068 intab respondents and so the survey precision was very high. Wu
Den-yih said that prior to the "long stay," Ma Ying-jeou was
trailing by 28.2% versus 34.8% for Frank Hsieh. By the end of July,
the public opinion poll gave Ma Ying-jeou 44.6% support in Central Taiwan
versus the 19.8% for Frank Hsieh.

Wu Den-yih said that the 2008 presidential election will be decide by what
happens in Central Taiwan. KMT candidate has an advantage in northern
Taiwan while DPP candidate has an advantage in southern Taiwan. So
everything swings on what happens in Central Taiwan. The fact that Ma
Ying-jeou picked pears and planted rice in Central Taiwan shows that he has
direct contact with the people there and makes him become "a part of
the masses" instead of "high above."

The only useful part of these "survey results" is that the KMT
felt that Central Taiwan is the swing area and therefore they needed a large
survey sample in order to gauge the situation in this area. As for
whether picking pears and planting rice makes anyone closer to the people,
you can say whatever you want ...

[027] Comments?
(08/09/2007) Commenting is not allowed on EastSouthWestNorth. As
a result, this website has been equated to Glenn Reynold's Instapundit at
one point. Actually, I am not unsympathetic with what someone like
Glenn Reynolds has to deal with. What is wrong with allowing
comments? Here are some examples:

(1) In the item below (Analyzing Internet
Cursing), Mao Yushi said: "In the past, I seldom go and read my
own blog. Recently, at the advice of friends, I went on the Internet
to see how people react to my blog posts." Isn't that
amazing? Mao Yushi allowed comments, but he did not read them.
Why? Take the top Chinese blogger Xu Jinglei for example. She
averages several hundred thousand pageviews per blog post and she is ranked
among the Technorati Top 100. At the standard rate of 2% comments per
post, she gets several thousand comments per blog post. Will she read
them? I doubt it, because she certainly never replies to any
comments. After all, she has a real career and a real life, and she
only has 24 hours per day in her life. So she permits commenting but
she never looks at any of it. What is the point? Xu Jinglei is
only providing a space for people to have their say, but she is incapable of
responding because of the sheer amount of comments.

(2) In The
Patriotic Bar Busters of China, at the world's largest Chinese-language
forum at Baidu, Internet armies known as the Burning Crusaders, Ah Cool's
Army, the Blue Cats and the Little White Rabbit Battle Troops have been
overwhelming certain forums such as the fan sites for Rainie Yang with spam
posts and comments all in the name of patriotism. You can open up
comments but tens of thousand comments are posted in one day in an virtual
attack on your forum. They are not just the Viagra and Cialis spam
crap that you can filter out by using 'sensitive keywords.' Nor are
they just abusive curses that you can hit the delete key upon viewing the
first ten words. Instead, they are the kind of subtle stuff generated
by robots such as Scott
Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator. Maybe you want
to engage with such a rational-sounding person, but you could be facing BlogWarBot,
the Automated Internet Political Argument. The debate can go
on forever without them ever being worn out because the other side is just a
computerized robot. Meanwhile, their purpose is to wear you out to the
point where you delete all the comments/posts at your blog/forum because you
are unable to tell the good from the bad amidst the cacophony generated by
thousands of sock puppets using spam-bots and complaint-bots.

Meanwhile the diversionary question is this: Who is the greatest Hong Kong
blogger ever? According to media worker/blogger Leona
Wong, it is Leon Ho. Who!? You have probably never heard
of Leon Ho? According to Technorati, the famous mainland Chinese
actress/director/producer Xu Jinlei is ranked at #51 by, but Livehhack.org
founded by Leon Ho is ranked at #42! Wow! When Leona Wong asked
Leon Ho for advice on how to popularize her blog, he said: "Open up
your comments!" Leona Wong writes a blog in her own name and she
works for a newspaper. The act of opening up comments poses both risks
and opportunities. The world is watching what will happen ...

In the past, I seldom go and read my own
blog. Recently, at the advice of friends, I went on the Internet to
see how people react to my blog posts. The Internet is really a good
thing because people can say what they think from their hearts and everybody
is equal to each other. This cannot occur in other situations.

Recently, I published an essay titled
<You can speak for the rich, but you do things for the poor>.
There are some who agreed with the essay and there are others who criticized
it. That is nothing unusual. But there were two completely
different types of comments in terms of tone and style. First there
were the curses, which are usually short and terse with just one or two
sentences. That accounted for one-quarter of the comments. Then there
are the rational discussions. The phenomenon of cursing people is
worthy of analysis, because it can tell us many things.

Here are some examples of curses: "You
go and drop dead!" "May the Lord of Hell torture
you!" "Are you really your mother's child? Why are you
so fucking horrible?" "Go eat shit!" "An old
dog!"

These sentences are quite short, but they
carry some important information.

First of all, the people who say these
things are most likely less educated and cannot use analytical reasoning to
persuade other people. So they say something very short to let off
steam. Actually, they may object on reasonable grounds, but they find
it hard to organize their thoughts and they cannot fully articulate what
they think. When they encounter bullying in real life, they have the
same problem with trying to argue rationally and so they often employ
violent tactics too. Internet cursing and mob violence have the same
origins -- their fists are stronger than their brains.

Actually, they must have felt strong
discontent for them to use the vilest of words. In truth, they may not
really want me dead. More importantly, their discontent with society
has almost reached a point of explosion. If such explosive feelings
exist widely, then it is a signal for danger. If there should ever be
social disturbances, it would hurt everybody including the grassroots
elements of society. Throughout history, all rebellions depend on the
mobilization of the grassroots. A rebellion is one group of grassroots
attacking another group of grassroots, and it is always the grassroots who
are victimized. Those who gain are the smart people who know how to
use and manipulate others. Ordinary people do not understand the
lessons of these experiences. They are easy to incite, they act rashly
and they are readily deceived to become cannon fodder.

We have to ask why so many people will not
think rationally and instead go to the extreme with their explosive
feelings? This has to do with our elementary education. In our
elementary schools, we are still teaching the same old stuff about class
struggles; we praise heroes who emerge from the class struggles. There
is also unprincipled patriotism, which says that anything that our nation
does is right. There are no principles of justice and universal
love. We advocate struggling to fight for a simple goal and we oppose
any doubts and creative ideas. This sort of education is carried all
the way through university. If the teacher should depart from this
line in classroom, he/she may be sanctioned, or even sent off for labor
reform. The result of advocating an education based upon blind
obedience may be the opposite of what was hoped for.

Our elementary education does not teach
people to respect others as well as oneself. Never mind what is in the
books, because it comes from practical life too. During the Cultural
Revolution, only the Leftist ideas were correct and this type of correct
thinking has not been purged yet. That is why we have the habit of
cursing people. Many elementary school teachers belong to the
generation which grew up during the Cultural Revolution. Their words
and acts influence the next generation. We may have negated the
Cultural Revolution, but we have not gone through a full criticism of
Cultural Revolution That is why we are still suffering today.

[025] Taiwan
By The Numbers (08/09/2007) (TVBS)
(1,007 persons interviewed on August 1-2 by telephone. Telephone phone
numbers were drawn from the directory and then the last four digits were
randomized.)

Q1. If you can vote tomorrow for the president, who would you likely vote
for?46%: Ma Ying-jeou
22%: Frank Hsieh
33%: Undecided

Q2. The KMT team in next year's presidential election will be Ma
Ying-jeou and Vincent Siew Wan-chang. If the DPP team is Frank Hsieh
and Ye Chu-lan, which team will you likely vote for?52%: Ma-Siew
23%: Hsieh-Ye
25%: Undecided

Q3. The KMT team in next year's presidential election will be Ma
Ying-jeou and Vincent Siew Wan-chang. If the DPP team is Frank Hsieh
and Su Tseng-chang, which team will you likely vote for?47%: Ma-Siew
28%: Hsieh-Su
25%: Undecided

[024] More
Indecent Articles (08/09/2007) (Apple
Daily) In February this year, the Hong Kong newspapers Wen Wei
Po, Tak Kung Pao and Sing Pao published an article about the Queen's Guards L/Cpl
Emma Williams wearing only a Royal Military Police hat and nothing
else. The photograph was classified as Class II Indecent
Material. Yesterday in court, Wen Wei Po and Ta Kung Pao both pleaded
guilty as charged and were fined HKD 2,500 and HKD 2,000 respectively.
Sing Pao pleaded not guilt and a trial will be held later.

So what is the offending picture? You can find the same article at any
number of Chinese newspaper websites (see, for example, Gansu
Daily).

[023] The
Alliance For Beijing-style Cursing (08/08/2007) (Daqi)
On July 28, the Beijing public security bureau held a press conference to
discuss the case of the Alliance for Beijing-style Cursing (京骂联盟).
Since the Chinese Super Soccer League matches began this year, there have
been frequent displays of Beijing-style cursing at the home field for the
Beijing-based Guoan team. This phenomenon is in fact an organized
movement in which certain persons formed the Alliance for Beijing-style
Cursing to mobilize Guoan fans to participate in Beijing-style cursing.

During its investigation, the Beijing public security bureau discovered a
20-year-old unemployed man named Hao and five other persons were the
principal members of this 'alliance.' Since March this year, Hao and
others have announced on the Internet the time and place of assembly for
their followers during home games. They also waved flags with the
words "Capital Beijing-style Cursing Alliance" and led the
spectators to curse the referees and the athletes, thus seriously disrupting
public order. The Beijing public security bureau placed Hao under
administrative detention for seven days and forbade him to enter the sports
stadium to watch a soccer game for the next 12 months.

The Alliance for Beijing-style Cursing used to be a QQ group of soccer
fans. These young people discussed the Guoan games, and they gathered
to eat and meet. Soon Hao, who had plenty of time on hand because he
was unemployed, began to gain fame. Then someone came up with the
title of the Alliance for Beijing-style Cursing. This was unanimously
approved. At the third home game on April 15, the two Alliance flags
showed upon at the 13th section of the Guoan home stadium. At the
fourth home game on April 29, the Alliance unfolded a banner that said,
"Welcome To Hell 欢迎来到地狱."
In their view, the Alliance members believe that "Beijing-style cursing
is a unique Beijing cultural property." Hao said: "I knew
about Beijing-style cursing from when I was very young. Beijing people
like to curse when they watch sports."

In Beijing, the tradition of Beijing-style cursing has existed for a long
time. On the soccer field, the sounds of Beijing-style cursing come in
wave after wave. Hao believes that the Guoan players do not object to
the cursing. His reasoning was that when fans throw water bottles on
the field, the Guoan players will gesture for them to desist. But when
the cursing starts, the Guoan players do not make any effort to stop it.

But Beijing-style cursing has been criticized by the media. A soccer
fan from outside Beijing said that he had read that the Beijing soccer fans
were very passionate and they gather to sing the national anthem before the
game commences. But within a few minutes, the several tens of
thousands of people who had just sung the national anthem would begin
cursing together ...

Some people have connected Beijing-style cursing with the overseas soccer
hooligans. Another Beijing soccer fan club official said that the
members of the Alliance for Beijing-style Cursing are at the age of rebelling
and rejecting authority, and the soccer stadium is the place where they exhibit
their personalities.

On August 7, there were two pieces of news
about broadcasting people which together make for interesting reading.

One of them is the essay in China Youth
Daily by CCTV commentator Zheng Genling who deplored the Internet for always
"demonizing" CCTV, including the case of Hai Xia's
"Explanation gate." He believed that certain media people
are rash when they want to spread rumors, even to the extent of ignoring the
basic requirement for journalistic accuracy.

The other is the reappearance of Guangzhou
broadcast host Chen Yang after being away for one month without
explanation. This quelled the various rumors swirling about his
'disappearance.' Chen explained that he swallowed a fish bone and
therefore had to take time off to recuperate. He said that he had not
been forced off the air by special pressure.

Let us first talk about the Chen Yang
affair. Why should the normal leave taken by the host of a local
broadcast station be the subject of so much speculation in society to the
point that it became a public incident that drew media attention? That
was because Chen had a sense of justice with respect to the ills and evils
in contemporary society, and he had the art of language that was perceptive
but reserved. Has Chen Yang ever misspoken? Has he said
something wrong before? For sure, but the Guangzhou audience did not
launch an attack on him and they did not "demonize" him.
They forgave his minor mistakes for the sake of his fight for justice at the
grand scale. They even raised it to the level of "Chen Yang style
humor" and enjoyed it.

Meanwhile, while are people so demanding on
CCTV, even to the point of demonizing it? In recent years, there have
been so many scandals coming out of CCTV. People like Zhao Zhongxiang,
Zhao An and Yang Yichao were all the male principal characters in scandals
that roiled society. Who was "demonizing" them?

Something has to be rotten first before the
maggots appear. You cannot blame someone else. All of that is
actually secondary because the public discontent against CCTV has a deeper
reason. CCTV news is detached from the masses, they use clichés and
lies and their hosts are cold, stiff and expressionless. The public
has been unhappy with them for a long time. Forget about anything
else, but comments such as "the disaster victims were happy as if they
were enjoying Chinese New Year" had occurred many years ago.
Today, there is the Internet platform and the viewer opinion can be broadly
distributed. Therefore, if Hai Xia was treated unjustly, then it was
because other people maligned her.

CCTV is a top brand and has always been the
target of demonization. As a CCTV worker, I am "logically"
criticized during meetings of friends. Recently, these types of
"criticisms" have moved onto the various media. Two
outstanding examples is the Hai Xia "Explanation Gate" affair and
the CCTV layoffs of temporary workers.

Behind all this, it shows the brash way in
which certain media people "logically" report rumors without any
respect for journalistic accuracy.

Take the case of Hai Xia's
"Explanation gate." This was about the feelings of the
reporter live at the scene of the diversion of flood waters at the Wangjiaba
dam. But netizens used it to target Hai Xia, who is a well-known
television hostess, because that will draw more attention and make the
demonization more effective.

I watched the video of that broadcasts several times. First, the
reporter at the scene said; "Since the clean-up of the Huaihei River in
2003, there has not been any floods because the weather has been good.
The Wangjiaba dam was not opened. Therefore, on this occasion, the
masses felt that this was a festive occasion like the Chinese New
Year. They all came out to watch the flood gates open." Hai
Xia then asked: "The people are watching the flood gates open at the
dam like it was Chinese New Year and they sense a great change is
happening. Is this so?" A keen observer will note that Hai
Xia was skeptical about what the reporter said and she was trying to remind
the reporter's judgment about "Chinese New Year." But the
reporter failed to understand and said "Yes" with confidence
instead.

During this broadcast, there was no view of
Hai Xia. The picture was either the reporter or the flood gates, and
the sound was Hai Xia's worried words. How can people say that
"Hai Xia said somewhat excitedly with a smile on her face"?
I asked the reporter and he said that the "Chinese New Year"
judgment came from some of the local people as well as his personal sense at
the scene. The fortification of the dam in 2003 made local people
loved from the lowlands to a relatively safe place. The section of the
land that was swamped by the released flood water had no inhabitants, and
the government has promised to compensate the farmers for any crop
losses. That is why they did not have the feeling of hurt as the
netizens who attacked Hai Xia had.

Meanwhile, on July 30, Yangchang Wanbao carried a report from Hong Kong's
Tai Kung Pao about CCTV laying off temporary workers as a result of the
"cardboard buns" affair at Beijing TV. This explosive piece
of news drew strong reactions inside and outside of China . Many more media
went in and hyped it up even more. Yet, as far as I know, this was
another piece of "fake news" in the manner of Hai Xia's
"Explanation gate."

Why is this a piece of "fake news"? CCTV had been getting
rid of the temporary workers long before the "cardboard buns"
affair. The direct cause was the <Labor Contract Law> that will
go into effect on January 1, 2008 to regulate employment. Since
various departments had been employing people without regard to regulations,
CCTV decided to get rid of the temporary workers. By concidence, this
action occurred when the "cardboard bun" fake news was
exposed. Certain media did not care about the truth and they just
directly linked the two totally unrelated matters into a cause-and-effect
relationship.

[020] Get
Rid Of That Obscene Man (08/07/2007) (auto.163.com)
First, there was a post: "I went out on the weekend and took some
photographs. This one is cool, except that the disgusting and obscene
looking man polluted the background. Are there any experts out there
who can eliminate him? Thank!"

In about four hours' time, a commentator posted this photograph:

But this is the Chinese Internet and sometimes you get more than you ask
for. First, there were the comments (Daqi):
"The digusting and obscene man polluted the background? He was
just a passerby and you use such a description. What are you
then?"
"I think that you should have been eliminated from the
photograph."
"You included someone else in your photograph without permission, so
this is an invasion of privacy. Someone walks by and you say that he
is disgusting and obscene, so you have libeled him. You have the nerve
to say this out. You are going to cursed out. Please be careful
that some expert will remove your clothes.

Then came the spoofs:

[019] The
Master Tailors and the Five-Star Flag (Apple
Daily) The 32nd Congress of Master Tailors is taking place in
Taipei. The open ceremony was held by President Chen Shui-bian.
Before President Chen arrived, the workers realized that there was a
five-star flag of the People's Republic of China and took it down minutes
before the ceremony began. There was only a Republic of China flag
left in the hall.

However, there was still another five-star flag out in the hallway over the
escalator. But President Chen took the elevator and therefore never
saw this flag.

The Presidential Office said that they had no idea why the organizers took
down the five-star flag. The spokesperson said that this was an
international activity run by a civilian organization and there was no need
to be over-sensitive.

The secretary-general of the World Congress of Master Tailors explained that
there were representatives from the People's Republic of China present, but
they had gone out yesterday to sightsee at Sun Moon Lake. That was why
the five-star flag was taken down. But what about the flag over the
escalator? It was too difficult to reach!

Apple Daily checked with a couple of academics for different
viewpoints. One said: "If the Democratic Progressive Party
government is really advocating a different country on each side of the
strait, they should have let them hang the flag. If we accept that the
People's Republic of China is a country, then we should let their flag
hang. There was no need to avoid it." The other said:
"Since China refuses to accept that we are a nation, why should we
accept them in a unilateral fashion and let their flag hang. Isn't
this like sticking our warm faces onto their cold buttocks? Taking the
five-star flag down is one way for the organizers to counteract against what
China is doing. But the government ought to have a standard way of
dealing with the presence of the five-star flag in order to avoid
controversy."

Yesterday, nine Hong Kong newspapers
(including Ta Kung Pao, Wen Wei Po, Sing Tao, Hong Kong Economic Times,
Oriental Daily, The Sun, South China Morning Post, Hong Kong Daily News,
Hong Kong Economic Journal) all carried a report about an interview
with Standing Commission on Civil Service Salaries and Conditions of
Service chairman Nicky Lo Kar-chun. The contents of the reports were
more or less identical, as Lo revealed that Salaries Standing Commission
intends to review the structure of public services wages and he also
discussed certain controversial aspects of public servant salaries. In
itself, this is not a big news item, but the public (especially the
taxpayers) might be interested to the extent that certain public servants
may be receiving wages.

Ming Pao did not have a corresponding
report, so that its readers have no way of knowing the policy direction of
the Salaries Standing Commission. We believe that it is normal for the
media to go for exclusive news. However, when a news item is of
interest to many citizens, the relevant party should have notified all the
media for its tea or chat session so that everyone has equal opportunity.

Yesterday, our reporter followed up on this
matter. The Civil Service Bureau said that they did not intervene in
the interviewing arrangements of the Salaries Standing Commission, while the
Salaries Standing Commission said that this particular tea session was
arranged as demanded by those media. But our understanding that at
least one of the nine newspapers present did not ask for an interview, but
was notified to attend all the same.

People who are familiar with news
operations know that whenever the government or Civil Service Bureau need to
evaluate the salary of individual civil servant salaries, the Salaries
Standing Commission will normally begin the evaluation. But why did
the Salaries Standing Commission not arrange for Nicky Lo to hold a press
conference and use the normal channels to publish the fact? Why did
they chose certain newspapers only for "special
information"? Why did they choose those nine newspapers and not
the others? We don't know. It is not certain what the other
newspaper not present think (note: Apple Daily, The Standard, etc). As
far as Ming Pao is concerned, we believed that we were shut out from the
news, and this is an infringement of the freedom of press. We will
watch how things develop and we will use appropriate measures to defend the
freedom of press.

[017] The
Traitor Annie Yi (08/06/2007) (Wenxue
City) In the mainland Chinese television drama "The Smoke
from Wolves' Dung", the Taiwanese actress Annie Yi played the part of
the daughter of a mayor who was the announcer for a military-themed
television program. As such, she wore a military uniform.

For her television role, pan-green supporters have rushed into her blog with
accusations and condemnations. Taiwan's Minister of Information Shieh
Jhy-wei also said that Annie Yi
is "the victim of the education system of the KMT" and
"Taiwan artistes should be capable of certain basic judgments."

My manager sent me news from Taipei
I am only going to say this once
What the netizens said about my maternal grandfather is wrong
He was not killed by mainland Chinese soldiers
I must say that this affair caused great terror for my mother
And it obviously impacted me.

My maternal grandfather Mr. Yang Yuanding was wrongly framed as a Communist
spy and executed by the KMT people
The adults around me all expressed sorrow about the death of my maternal
grandfather
However, they were scared of the white terror at the time and they refused
to have contact with our family
They were scared of getting involved.

I am now an adult
I know very well that most people who are sent to fight in wars are not
volunteers
Most people have no idea why they are in a battle
Politics is always decided by certain scheming careerists
The victims are the mothers who send their children to serve as soldiers

I was also an impoverished child
My success was obtained through my hard work and not by any illicit means
I have paid every cent in taxes honestly
I have designated my public donations to the children of Taiwan

As an actress, I can say that
I believe that my roles are good and honest and they will not insult people
of Chinese descent
That is the most important
As for the media practice to be inflammatory, bloodthirsty, hate-mongering
and noise-making,
I will not react in any way

I will not teach my children to learn to hate and choose a stance at birth
This is a globalized village
The earth is warming up, a child will die from hunger every five minutes,
the rain forests are disappearing, animal species are nearing extinction
Yet humans will continue to fight and kill in the name of ethnic identity
and interests

Besides this affair should be regarded from both sides with respect to any
ethnic confrontation

These are two thoroughly different matters
I accept differences in opinion, and I accept being detested
But since we have freedom and democracy
I also have my rights
Please learn to respect before imposing judgment instead of just constant
hatred

This is one and only time that I will comment on this affair
The media should not bother to follow up with me because I will not respond

[016] A
Female Mao Impersonator (08/06/2007) (Chongqing Morning News
via Wenxue
City) Yesterday, the Mao Zedong impersonator Chen Yan made an
appearance at the Chongqinq's Yangjiaping pedesitrian mall. She walked
through the crowd and waved to the people. Many citizens stopped to
shake hands and get their photographs. Chen even lit up a cigarette.

But there is something different about this Mao Zedong impersonator.
Unlike all the other impersonators, Chen Yan is actually female. And
if you check out her shoes, you will note that they have padded at the
bottom.

[015] "The
Police Man Was Trash" (08/06/2007) (Apple
Daily (TW)) A 20-year-old female blogger in Taiwan is having
problems with the law. In late March this year, the woman named Liu
went through a red light on her motorcycle. She was stopped by a
policeman named Hou who wrote her a ticket. Liu disagreed and they had
an argument in the street. Liu took a photograph of Hou with her
mobile phone camera. She also refused to sign the ticket. Hou
provided her with the information to file a complaint.

Six hours after the incident, Liu posted at her blog. The title of the
post was "Fuck your mother, damned policeman." She cursed
Hou as "cheap trash," "hooligan worm whose mother was a
prositute." She said that she is not working but nevertheless she
"has to spend a large sum of money to feed a group of hooligan
worms." She wrote: "I fuck your mother, Hou. You
ruined my image as a lady! Fuck you to death! Fuck your whole
family to death." Liu also posted the photograph of Hou and
wrote: "Do you lack money?" She downloaded a photograph of
Jet Li in the movie <Fearless> and modified it so that the actor is
holding a penis. The caption to the photograph was addressed to Hou:
"I'll ram this up your bung hole tonight."

Recently, a colleague of Hou was patrolling the Internet and came across
this blog post. Liu was summoned to the police station. Hou said
that he was prepared for an amicable settlement. But at the meeting in
the police station, Liu just sat with her hand propping up her jaw and
listened to the police officer explain the laws that she might have
violated. She seemed bored and probably thought that one does not have
to bear any responsibility for speech made on the Internet. This made
Hou very angry and he decided to sue Liu for public insult.

A lawyer said that Liu is facing the following problems:
(1) she used obscene language to curse Hou, and this constitutes 'public
insult'
(2) if her version of the story about the traffic ticket is inconsistent
with the facts, then she is guilty of defamation
(3) 'fuck your whole family to death' may be considered a physical threat to
Hou and his family
(4) the posting of the photograph of Hou without his consent violated the
right to his image
(5) Jet Li may also sue for public insult for the modified photograph

In 1982, the family planning policy was
accepted as a core state policy and written into the Constitution. The
policy has been enforced rigorously in China for 25 years. No other
policy is as well-known as this one, because it affects every family.
But like any other policy, it may be simplified and distorted during the
process of implementation. The success of the policy depends on
incentives, both positive and negative. In rural villages, the threat
of fines is more effective that rewards and therefore punishment occurs
frequently. After a while, the masses begin to think that family
planning equals fines for exceeding birth quota.

When the policy is simplified this way, the
slogans in the rural villages are reduced to violence as well. On the
Internet, photograph albums of family planning slogans are perennial
favorites. These slogans are very colloquial and easy to say and
understand. But the implied violence is scary. The State Family
Planning Commission believes that these slogans were too severe, stern, cold
and lacking humanitarism. Therefore, they have issued a new set of 190
slogans that are more civilized.

While this is a good thing, we cannot gloss
over the fact that the old slogans were created by family planning workers
and reflect their understanding of family planning. Changing the
slogans are not enough. It is necessary to change their working styles
and attitudes.

During the past 25 years, family planning
work has been focussed on "having fewer children." But
family planning actually contains much more than that. However,
"having few children" happens to be easier to communicate, control
and evaluated. According to the Constitution, the purpose of family
planning was to "make the population growth commensurate with the
economic and social developments." That is to say, if necessary
for the sake of economic and social developments, the state may even
encourage "having more children."

Twenty five years after the family planning
policy came in, certain population issues have emerged. For example,
there is a serious imbalance in gender ratio; in 20 years' time, China will
have 300 million single men. As another example, as the population of
China ages, there may be problems with social security.

You beat it out, you can make it fall out, you can abort it, but you cannot
give birth to it!

The Ten Yes's and the Ten No's of Family Planning

Rather have blood flow like a river than to have one more child than allowed!

[013] A
Survey Of Sample Size Four (08/05/2007) Following my survey of
sample size two, Tom at the Pandemonium
group blog has conducted his own survey about Queen's Pier within his own
personal circle.

I just read Roland Soong's 'survey
research report.' It is the most interesting among all the
essays about Queen's Pier. The interesting part is not just the survey
interviewees who -- unlike the many netizens -- do not care whether Queen's
Pier lives or dies, but their opinions and attitudes form a lively sarcastic
comment on the preservationists who claim to represent the
"masses." Out of curiosity, I decided to imitate Roland
Soong and interview a few people.

The first person was my mother, who has
lived in Hong Kong for over five decades. I asked: "Do you have
any memories related to Queen's Pier?" "I used to, but I
have not paid much attention. There is no memory to speak
of." I asked again: "Do you agree with the demolition of the
pier?" "What does it matter to me?" She paused
and added: "If I have to remember, I would remember the General Post
Office in Central." I asked: "Why?" "Because
it was beautiful."

The second person was my grandmother, who
has lived in Hong Kong for over six decades. But in the end, I did not
get to ask my question because I spent five minutes trying to articulate my
question without any avail. But I can say that when she saw the news
report about the Queen's Pier tussle, she spontaneously said: "What a
waste!" I think that this explains her position clearly enough.

The third person was a
20-something-year-old female friend who is a total Hong Kong native. I
was in contact with her over MSN. I asked her about Queen's Pier and
she said: "None of my damn business." Then she drop the
subject.

The fourth person was the co-blogger 掬香齋主人.
I was speaking to him by telephone about interesting things that we have
recently read in books and I brought up the subject of Queen's Pier.
He said: "I don't have any special feelings. I rather regret the
demolition of the General Post Office. Queen's Pier was not beautiful.
Besides, since Star Ferry is no longer there, there is no point leaving
Queen's Pier behind." I said: "This is like someone who has
99% of his skin ripped off. So what is that one small inch skin left
on the tip of this toe?" He said: "You remind me of these
scoundrels who deceive innocent young girls. They tell the girls:
'Since you are not a virgin any more, why not sell your body instead?'
This sounds quite persuasive."

General Post Office, 19 DeVoeux Road
Central, Hong Kong

The four people that I interviewed were familiar
to me. They are ordinary Hong Kong citizens, they have no political
leanings, they have not gone to study Farsi in Iran and they don't care
about the history of civil disobedience. They are be interested in
"decoding colonialism" that some "cultural commentators"
do. But it is not without risk to publish the opinions of one's family
members and friends, because some people think that anyone who does not
oppose the demolition of Queen's Pier must be a "patriotic
element" on the same level as the Victoria Park uncles. As Leung
Man-tao wrote in the essay "Time is on our side -- an open letter to
Carrie Lam Yuet-ngor":

I don't blame you because many people of
your generation feel that this is the leftover from British colonialism
and a national shame. Not only must the pier be demolished, but it
is done as soon as possible. If these people live in mainland China,
they would be finding ways to demolishing the last remaining "comfort
hostels" of the Japanese army.

The horror of this logic is: If you do not
oppose the demolition of Queen's Pier, then your reason must be because you
think that it is a national shame; if you think Queen's Pier is a national
shame, it means that you are like the Victoria Park uncles. This is so
logical. And if you don't think that Queen's Pier is pretty and so
there is no loss without it, some netizens will say: "You make me feel
that you are very feeble-minded." Therefore, I say that
publishing the views of your friends and family members is quite
risky. Even if these people don't analyze this via
"colonialism/post-colonialism/de-colonization/collective memory,"
your friends and family members may be regarded as "very
feeble-minded." They will be criticized for not understanding the
"values and world views of the brand new generation. And, of
course, time is not on your side.

Neither my own survey of sample size two
nor Tom's survey of sample size four carry any statistical meaning. I
wrote what I wrote not about the Queen's Pier issue, but about the general
tactics of the preservationists. When all said and done, there were
perhaps several hundred people who turned out at Queen's Pier to support the
preservation of this heritage site. Why weren't there many more?
I believe that this may have to do with the tactics. Among the many
stories, there was one about a "Victoria Park uncle"-type who
showed up to harangue the protestors. One female preservationist took him
aside and spent hours explaining why they were there. In the end, he
conceded that there was a point. So there is a way to get through and
win sympathy. The point in the two non-representative surveys here is
that many of the tactics were counter-productive. For example, you
should not be attacking the insertion of yet another mall because mall
culture is stupid. Almost 200,000 people visit the Times Square mall
in Causeway Bay on the weekend, and if you can even get 1% of them to show
up at Queen's Pier, the public opinion dynamics would have shifted in favor of
preservationists. Instead, when you insult them by calling the mall culture stupid, you
have just made sure that they will oppose you. In like manner, when
some people do not consider Queen's Pier as having aesthetic merits, you
should not say that they are 'feeble-minded' because you will have made sure
that they will be on the other side. The point is to win people over
to your side and not to antagonize them by calling them stupid or
feeble-minded. This is very simple tactically but it went missing at
times. I understand that a movement cannot dictate what every
supporter says, but there should have been some self-corrective action.

[012] Is
Anything Worth Preserving In Hong Kong? (08/04/2007)
Collective memory is nebulous because of the subjectivity involved.
When it comes to collective memories, each person will have different
memories and it is not up to one person or the other to tell you what your
memories ought to be. Collectivity means "done by
or characteristic of individuals acting together."
Here are some dilemmas:

Exhibit #1: On the left, there is the landmark Hong Kong Shanghai
Bank building. This used to be the anchor in Central. In time,
all sorts of other tall buildings rose up around it. This was also a
signal that Chinese (i.e. non-British) financial powers were emerging.
Besides, the business of the premier bank in Hong Kong was growing to the
point where they needed much more office space. Shall this place be
declared a historical landmark building and hence untouchable? Alas,
no, it was demolished to make way for a monster of a building (next to other
monster buildings such as the Bank of China) as shown in the photograph on
the right. The new building is known as the HSBC building (rather than
Hong Kong Shanghai Bank building because HSBC is a multinational corporation
that is no longer restricted to Hong Kong-Shanghai alone).
Yet, one of the strangest consequences is about the use of public
space. The old building was clearly inhospitable to public use -- it
was a bank building intended for bank business and nothing else. One
cannot walk in and do something other than banking. The new building
has an open ground floor. On Sundays, the place is buzzing with
thousands of foreign domestic helpers hanging out. What is your vote
in hindsight -- the old or the new? This is somewhat absurd, because
the preserved old building would be sitting there dwarfed by the Bank of
China building next to it -- why do that except for the obvious insult to
the Brits?

Exhibit #2: On the left, there is the old Kowloon-Canton Railway
Station in Tsimshatsui next to the Star Ferry. The station came with a
vast train stockyard on the harborfront. What is the economic
rationality of using this prime real estate to park cargo trains to unload
pigs? The decision by the British colonial adminstration was to relocate the terminus to Hung Hom and vacate
the station area for the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, the Hong Kong Museum of
Art, the Hong Kong Space Museum, the Hong Kong Science Museum, the Hong Kong
Museum of History, the Avenue of the Stars, the Intercontinental Hotel, New
World Centre and the rest of the Tsim Sha Tsui East district. The only
thing left for the collective memory is the clock tower from the KCR station
(see the photograph on the right), which stands oddly out of place and
without any context.
What is your vote -- the old or the new?

Exhibit #3: When the construction for the MTR subway system began,
the General Post Office at 19 DeVoeux Road (photograph on the left) was
demolished to make away for the World
Wide House (see photograph on the right). As noted in the
Wikipedia entry, "The arcade is popular with the large Filipino
population, particularly on Sundays, as many of the shops are run by their
compatriots. The wide assortment of typically small shops caters to their
needs, selling merchandise from their homeland." The old General
Post Office would be closed for business on Sundays. Also, it would
seem that a lot more Hong Kong people miss this building than Queen's Pier.
What is your vote -- the old or the new?

Exhibit #4: Here is the principal subject these days -- Queen's
Pier. Wikipedia notes: "The Pier was a ceremonial landing area
for the British Royal Family visiting Hong Kong, and for successive
Governors to assert their authority on arrival. The first Governor to land
there was Cecil Clementi, in November of 1925." The following
photograph was taken on that august occasion.
But the pier shown in this photograph was demolished in the 1955 by the
British colonial government to make way for a brand new edifice that some
people considered undistinguished aethestically. By the way, the pier
further back in this photograph is the old Star Ferry, which was also demolished in the name of
progress to make way for a new pier with a clock tower. Would you have
frozen those the former Star Ferry and Queen's Pier for the sake of
collective memory?

Recently, I was in Zhangjiajie and my
roommate complained that I snored too loudly. So he stayed up to watch
television. Later in the night, I was awoken by a shrill female
voice. My roommate had fallen asleep and he was snoring, but he had
not turned off the television set. On the television screen, a female
expert -- using Yu Dan's posture, expression and convincing tone in
discussing The Analects -- was explaining how a man could enlarge his penis.

Any Chinese person who watches late night
television is likely to be able to see such ads. These idiotic
swindles are likely to generate a lot of money, because they take up plenty
of advertising time. They also showed that the television stations
must not be making a lot of money, and many of them will fail without the
support of these quacks. Pathetically, some of these practitioners get
nervous in public because they are scared of the paparazzis.

Has it become intolerable? August 2
in Beijing News: "The State Administration of Radio, Film and
Television issued a notice to the various local broadcast offices to adhere
to the law with respect to these advertisements. Among the banned
advertisements are the various illegal medicines and health products.
But this time, advertisements that hint at sex are also banned."
The reason was that these advertisements "seriously impacted the public
trust in broadcast television." From the other angle, this proves
that the advertisements are fake; if the penises really became bigger and
longer, the "public trust" in the television stations would have
been enhanced.

This should be done. In August last
year, there were ban orders against breast enhancement, infertility and
other fake ads. The revenue at one television station went down
60%. This showed that certain television station were built on the
financial foundation of flat chests and poor sexual performances. Even
the almighty CCTV was broadcasting Tang Guoqiang's famous "Guanyin
Goddess bringing a son" advertisement.

There is no excuse not to ban these
ads. When television stations claim to trumpet the "main
theme" but their financial reports showed that their clients are mostly
confidence artists, what is the explanation?

Nevertheless, even though a ban was imposed
last year, the ads actually becme more and more disgusting since. I am
not optimistic about this new ban either, and we may yet see another more
severe ban next year. Our GDP is rising rapidly, the economic
situation is bright, people like to spend money and we have practically
eaten up all the pigs out there. So the television ad space should be
very valuable. Yet, the television stations have to rely on sex
ads. This only shows that some of these television stations are nearly
bankrupt because they don't have any audience.

If the television stations really carry out
the orders, I see that the only outcome is that they must close their
businesses. This is not something the relevant departments want to see
either.

The way out for television is to be loved
by the audience because the ads will be liked and the respectable
advertisers will invest. What do people like to watch?
Obviously, the innovative and creative works. But when a regional
television station runs a singing contest, CCTV jumps in to call it
low-browed. CCTV thinks that it is high-browed with its palace dramas,
which benefit from the fact that we have so many emperors in our
history. If you want to make more realistic drama, then there are
taboo zones everywhere. Wang Shuo recently reported that certain film
review boards are corrupt because they won't give approval unless they get
bribes. Are could such television shows be good? If not the sex
ads, what else can they rely on? Will you charge the government/party
leaders money for broadcasting news reports about their meetings?

While it is right to ban fake ads, the
television stations should be given more leeway to stay alive.

[010] Where Is The YouTube
Video? (08/04/2007) According to Asia Weekly (Yazhou Zhoukan,
August 12, 2007 issue, page 36), Shanghai Communist Party cadres were asked
to watch a television documentary titled <The Trouble With Greed 貪污之害>
about the case of former Shanghai city party secretary Chen Liangyu.
The film was made by the Shanghai city party disciplinary committee and the
Shanghai city publicty department and runs for 40 minutes. In the
film, many former Shanghai senior officials expressed their regret on
camera.

Former Labor Department chief Zhu Junyi estimated that he received in excess
of 10 million yuan in bribes. He said that he had reached a structural
deadend in his career when he was promoted Labor Department chief with
nowhere else to go. At first, he took small amounts of money.
Then he got bolder and bolder until it went out of control.

Former secretary for Chen Lianyu and former district leader of the Baoshan
district Qin Yu complained that he was the victim of psychological
stress. He took more than 7 million yuan in bribes. He looked at
himself, who worked for 16 hours a day and take home a pitifully meagre
paycheck. Meanwhile, he looked at the private enterprise bosses are
loaded with money and eat and drink all they want. The idea of
unfairness caused him to fall into the trap of greediness.

Former Shanghai city party committee office director Sun Luyi accepted three
paintings, which were valued at more than 6 millon yuan. Of the three
paintings, two of them are believed to have been painted by Chen Yiyi.
But Sun Luyi knows painting and he saw that Chen Yiyi only drew the
character while someone else drew the background.

Former Changning district leader Chen Chaoyan worked for Chen Liangyu back
at Huangpo district and he took more than 50 million yuan in bribes.
He realized that he was in big trouble and so he looked into the camera and
ask the party for lenient treatment in consideration of his three major
contributions. One, he founded the Nanjing Road Pedestrian Mall when
he was the deputy leader of the Huangpo district; two, he took over the
Jiancai Company and turned a losing proposition into a profitable
enterprise; third, his contributions at the Changning district is there for
everyone to see.

Former Shanghai Electric Group CEO Wang Changming was faced with the
possibility of being expelled from the Communist Party as well as being
relieved of both his party/government jobs. He shrugged at the camera
and asked: "So I won't have a job afterwards. How I am going to
live?"

Former Shanghai Electric Group vice-president Han Guozhang came from a poor
family and he got to know the crooked businessman Zhang Yongshen. He
became the middleman between Zhang and the corrupt officials. All the
bribes from Zhang were delivered by Han, who succumbed the temptation to
become greedy. When Zhang asked Han to deliver gold to the officials,
Han opened the packages, switched the gold to smaller quantities, closed the
packages and made the delivery to the relevant person.

This video would be an instant hit on the Chinese Internet. But what
are the chances of its release?

[009] The
Truth Versus The Alternate View (08/03/2007) In a blog post
entitled "Do
not use freedom of speech to misinform," the blogger discussed
the July 18th rainstorm in Jinan. A central issue was whether anyone
died at the Ginza Shopping Mall:

Did anyone drown at the Ginza Shopping Mall
at Quancheng Plaza?

The answer is no. This question may
be difficult for those who have never been to Quancheng Plaza in Jinan City
to understand, but those who have visited the place should have no
doubt. It does not matter if you have not been there either -- if you
search for the news stories on the Internet, you will see that the locals
have provided a clear explanation.

The rainstorm arrived suddenly and water
began to seep into the shopping mall. But there was no way that
falling rain could have accumulated to more than 1 meter high within three
hours. The problem arose after one and a half hours when the river the
northern side of Quancheng Plaza which served to drain storm water began to
spill over into the Plaza. Please note that the water was spilling
over due to congestion as opposed to rushing in in the manner of a dam
breach. The speed of the water was therefore quite slow. When
the workers who remained behind at the shopping mall realized that the river
was spilling over, they quickly organized an evacuation. This was
almost two hours after the rainstorm began, and most of the customers had
left already. The overflowing water was only accumulating slowly and
there was plenty of time time to evacuate. The mall security staff was
even able to wade through the water after it had reached almost one meter
high to make one last round of checking for stragglers. It was
therefore absurd to say that some people were unable to make it out.

The point that the blogger wanted to make is
that a lot of the information is readily available on the Internet. This
leads to the blogger's comment about a certain electronic magazine.

<Guantian Magazine> published many
reports and commentaries about the drowning deaths in Jinan and the arrest
of netizen "Red Diamond Empire." But it also chose to ignore
many publicly known facts. Under the guise of "freedom of
speech" and "pursuit of truth," they continued to magnify and
re-magnify the incident. I cannot but ask, Are they pursuing the truth
or muddling up the truth? "Freedom of speech" is a basic
inviolable right granted to citizens by the constitution, but should it be
abused? Should one abuse it by ignoring simple and publicly known
facts?

In truth, our government has plenty of
flaws and it abuses its power. There are many of improper behavior
that deserves our condemnation. If we get the right facts, we should
criticize the government. But there is no need to ignore, distort or
even make up facts. I cannot help but be disappointed in this magazine
that says: "This is a bi-monthly magazine is spontaneously produced by
a group of people who are concerned about society and culture. Here,
you can hear the voices of independent thinkers and you can see the social
problems from alternate viewpoints." I don't want to suspect your
motives, and I don't want to say that you have ulterior motives. But I
am really wondering if the only thing that you are pursuing is the
"alternate viewpoint" in your declaration.

[008] The
Anti-Internet T-Shirt (08/03/2007) (KDNet)
According to Wuhan Morning News, a 37-year-old single father had a
15-year-old son who was addicted to online games to the point where his
school grades were failing and his eyesight was ruined. "I try
the hard and soft approaches, but the son refuses to obey. He kept
sneaking out to go online." So he came up with the idea of
ordering a custom-made t-shirt that carried the words: "Reward for
reporting! If you see this boy using the Internet, please call the
parent's number 1530713084. You will receive an instant cash award of
100 yuan." The photo below was worn by the father for
demonstration purposes.
Unfortunately, no one has ever called to collect. Why? In China,
there is a saying: 上有政策，下有对策
(The guys at the top come up with policies, but the guys at the bottom have
counter-measures). In this case, the son has to wear the t-shirt in
order to go outside of the home but then he reverses the shirt inside out immediately.

[007] Drawing
Water from July Snow in Beijing (08/03/2007) The
Chinese term 抽水
usually means 'draw water' or 'pump water.' It also refers to the
process by which casinos impose a commission fee on bets. As such, it
is often used in politics to refer the process by which politicians seem to
pop up at every public event in order to get more media exposure.

Previously, in The
Injustice to Dou'e, it was reported that there was a five-minute
period beginning at 6:10pm, July 30, when snow fell from the sky near the
East Third Ring in Beijing.

According to Beijing
News, a record company has come forth to lay the claim that they had
been using a snow machine to make snow for a music video shoot on top of a
20-something-story-high office building at the time. The song was
<The Snow of East Fourth Ring> sung by Xiao Wen. The filming
began around 6pm or so, and they generated snow for about 10 minutes before
a rainstorm interrupted the filming.

So is this true? Or just a record company trying to 'draw water' and
get some public attention for its product?

[006] A
Survey Of Sample Size Two (08/03/2007) I had been complaining
about the lack of published reliable surveys about how Hong Kong people feel
about Queen's Pier. I am not interested in partisan opinions, because
they do not reflect what THE PEOPLE as a whole feel. Even reading the
generally liberal Hong Kong blogosphere leads me to suspect that the Queen's
Pier issue did not generate automatic sympathy. Sun Bin suggested Let's
do our own Queen's Pier Poll, but Internet polling is based upon
self-selected, non-representative samples.

So I decided to run my survey within my
social circle. In spite of what you believe, I do not spend all day
communicating with Hong Kong bloggers or foreign correspondents. My
social circle is dominated by restaurant workers and hospital nurses.
The latter are often too busy to speak because they are working. So
here are the two interviews with Hong Kong restaurant workers. These
are the true grassroots workers instead of professional protestors or
whatever. The usual caveat applies: these are two individuals selected
non-randomly from the people of Hong Kong and therefore cannot represent the
general population of Hong Kong in any meaningful way. You can talk to
such people in your daily life and see what they think. I encourage
you to do that yourself.

[Note: This respondent is a captain in a restaurant located in Times Square,
Causeway Bay.]
Q: Have you heard about the Queen's Pier affair?
A: What are you talking about? What is the Queen's Pier?
Q: Queen's Pier is the pier outside Hong Kong City Hall. The
government wants to demolish it.
A: I have never heard of Queen's Pier.
Q: Hmmm ... let me backtrack in time. Have you heard of Star Ferry?
A: No. What is Star Ferry?
Q: This is the ferry service between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon
Peninsula. You can take the ferry to go between Central Distirct in
Hong Kong and Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon.
A: I have never taken that ferry.
Q: Wow ... how long have you been living in Hong Kong?
A: I came here seven years ago from a rural village in Guangdong
province. It would take four hours by bus to visit my hometown today.
Q: On what basis did you come here?
A: I was smuggled in illegally. At the time, I was seven months
pregnant. My husband paid a smuggler to take me to Hong Kong by
speedboat.
Q: Seven months pregnant? Are you aware that if the Hong Kong Marine
Police spotted the speedboat and gave chase, the smuggler would throw you
overboard in order to make the police boat stop and rescue you?
A: Maybe. But it did not happen.
Q: Since arriving in Hong Kong, where have you been?
A: My family lives in a public housing estate in Sheung Kwai Chung. As
you know, I work in a Wanchai restaurant. I leave for work at 10am
every morning and I arrive home after midnight. I work six days a
week. On my day off, I am usually too tired to do anything. So I
don't go anywhere. I only know Sheung Kwai Chung, Wanchai and Mongkok
(where I used to work).
Q: Have you gone up to Victoria Peak, for example? It is the most
famous tourist spot in all of Hong Kong.
A: I might have done that as a tourist once before I came down to live in Hong
Kong. But I am not sure.
Q: Have you been to Hong Kong Disneyland?
A: Are you kidding? It is too far too expensive. It would cause
more than HKD 1,000 for our family of three.
Q: So you really have not been to Queen's Pier/Star Ferry?
A: Why would I? I don't have the time or energy for that kind of
luxury. Even if I did, they don't seem like my first choice.

[Note: This respondent is a cashier working at a restaurant near the Hung
Hom Kowloon-Canton Railway station in Kowloon.]
Q: Have you heard about the Queen's Pier affair?
A: Yes. I have seen it in the newspaper at the restaurant. But I
did not pay too much attention.
Q: What is your personal connection to Queen's Pier, if any?
A: When I was a young child, the family used to take the small boat at Queen's Pier
in order to see my father. We called them the "put-put
boats" because of the sound that their motors make. My father was
the captain of a seafaring ship. We took the small boats to the ship
in order to visit him.
Q: What is your impression of Queen's Pier?
A: It really was nothing memorable. It was a place where people hang
out to fish for mud carps.
Q: Fishing for mud carps? Hmmm ... do you realize what you are saying?
A: Huh ... what do you mean?
Q: Fishing for mud carps. Read that phrase aloud and think about what
that sounds like. It is a homonym for something that should be very
familiar.
A: Fishing for mud carps ... wow ... I never realized that! You have a
sick mind!
Q: It's not about me. It is a social acceptable homonym for not saying
the original item. How could you not know that? Where have you
been? Anyway, let us get back to the original question. How
familiar are you with the places in Hong Kong?
A: Are you kidding? I am a local Hong Kong girl. I know
everything!
Q: That's fantastic. Let me probe you. First, once upon a time,
I decided to take a walk. I took the bus from Kowloon to Shatin but I
got off at Shing Mun Reservoir. I followed the road west. When I
came out, it was a public housing estate named On Yam Estate. Which
district is this?
A: It is in Sheung Kwai Chung. My sister-in-law lives in Shek Yam
Estate right across On Yam Estate.
Q: Next, where is the Hong Kong Penitentiary Museum?
A: I know! It is outside of the Stanley Penitentiary. I was a
volunteer worker once upon a time and we visited prisoners at Stanley
Prison. We had the opportunity to visit the Museum outside. I
seemed to remember that they had an exhibit for prisoners used to be caned.
[ ... some more geographical questions are omitted in the interest of time and space here
...]
Q: How do you feel about the demolition of Queen's Pier?
A: Hmmm ... nothing much. It was not a really distinguished
place. I have not been anywhere near there for decades. So I
really don't care.

[005] Hong
Kong Without Numbers (08/02/2007) (SCMP) The
demolition and relocation of Queen's Pier were supported by the vast
majority of the public and the forcible removal of protesters demanding its
on-site preservation would not harm government popularity, top officials
claimed yesterday. Lau Siu-kai, head of the Central Policy Unit (CPU),
said the government was convinced the public was on its side.
"Polls conducted by us have shown that the majority of the public
support our plan to relocate Queen's Pier. The findings were obvious and
they are very much different from the views expressed by those protesting at
Queen's Pier," Professor Lau said. But he refused to reveal the
poll results, saying that in general the CPU would not publish findings as
they are for internal reference and publicising the questions and results
could embarrass the administration. "We are not fighting a war on
public opinion," Professor Lau said. "Since the removal of
protesters was relatively non-violent, the government's popularity would not
be affected."

As the saying goes, HARD PLASTIC! (which
is Hong Kong slang for "Stupid dickhead"). The
rules are simple: "No numbers, no speech right." It is
unacceptable (especially for someone with the title of Professor) to
whisper: "I've got a survey but I cannot show it to you. However, I
can tell you that the results support my actions." This is like
the democratically elected President with popularity ratings in the 20's saying, "I've got
a survey that shows that I am much more popular than that. However,
this is an internal confidential tracking poll and I cannot share the
results with you." You must be a dickhead to claim that!

[004] The
Battle Over <Lust, Caution> (08/02/2007) (Southern
Metropolis Daily) Director Ang Lee's <Lust, Caution> has
been selected as an entry at the 64th Venice Film Festival. But there
is some debate over the question about whether <Lust, Caution> is a
Taiwan movie.

On July 26, the official Venice Film Festival website published the list of
accepted entries. The place of origin of <Lust, Caution> was
listed as China-USA. Early in the morning the next day, the place of
origin was changed to Taiwan. According to Taiwan media reports, Ang
Lee's personal assistant called the Venice organizers to tell them that
"the submission form clearly indicated Taiwan, so why was it changed to
China-USA?"

When the news came that Ang Lee demanded the place of origin of <Lust,
Caution> be changed to Taiwan, Chinese netizens began to discuss.
At the Tianya forum, a netizen said that "he was somewhat
uncomfortable" but another netizen said that this was being too
sensitive: "He is clearly a Chinese person from Taiwan. The film
is classified according to the status of the director. I don't think
that there is any problem."

According to Ang Lee's personal assistant, <Lust, Caution> has
American investment funds and it was made in mainland China, but the three
major European film festivals (Cannes, Venice and Berlin) all define the
place of origin of a film according to the status of the director. Ang
Lee still holds a Taiwan passport, so <Lust, Caution> is a movie from
Taiwan. Ang Lee has lived in the United States for many years and he
holds a 'green card,' but he has not yet applied for citizenship. In
2000, Ang Lee's <Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon> won the Oscar award
for Best Foreign Film as a Taiwan movie for the same reason.

According to information from Taiwan, the local film laws define a Taiwan
movie as one with "participation by a Taiwan film production company, a
Taiwan director and at least 1/4 of the actors/actresses are from
Taiwan." <Lust, Caution> includes Ang Lee's Taiwan-based
company in the production, Ang Lee is from Taiwan and while the three major
actors/actresses are from Hong Kong, mainland China and USA respectively,
the remaining supporting cast is mostly from Taiwan. So it is arguably
a Taiwan movie.

<Lust, Caution> is adopted from a short story by Eileen Chang.
While the film will not be defined on the basis of the original writer, I
can still speculate on what the classification might be. Forgetting
about the movie, what would Eileen Chang write down if forced to make a
choice? Her best books made her an icon of her native Shanghai; her
reputation was burnished by the Hong Kong books (such as <Love in a
Fallen City>); she lived the last three decades of her life in the United
States; but it was Taiwan which preserved her published work through the
1970's and 1980's until mainland China opened up. All these places are
important in her life. But why does she have to choose? Even if
she had to put down the name of one place on a form, it does not have to
mean giving up the other places. So this is a false question.

[003] The
Injustice to Dou'e (08/01/2007) (Wikipedia)
The Injustice to Dou E (竇娥冤
Dou E Yuan) is a Chinese drama by Guan Hanqing during the Yuan Dynasty. This
is one of Guan's most popular works, even in modern times. The story
describes the young widow Dou E from Chouzhou whose husband Cai died two
years after marrying. Dou was wrongfully accused by Zhang Lür of the murder
of his father, when Dou E refused to marry Zhang Lür. At her
execution, this is what Dou E said (5days.cn)

I
want to say three things, officer. If you will let me, I shall die content.
I want a clean mat and a white silk streamer twelve feet long to hang on the
flag - pole. When the sword strikes off my head, not a drop of my warm blood
will stain the ground. It will all fly up instead to the white silk
streamer. This is the hottest time of summer, sir. If injustice has indeed
been done, three feet of snow will cover my dead body. Then this district
will suffer from drought for three whole years.

Yes,
but so what? As blogger Lian
Yue noted: On July 30, dark clouds began to gather in Beijing.
People thought that there was going to be another huge rainstorm.
Instead, at around 6:10pm, snow flakes began to fall in the East Third Ring
area. Although the snow lasted only about five minutes, many people saw
it. The snowflakes were about the size of a 5 cent coin and they melt
immediately upon touching ground. Then a heavy rain came.

Snow in Beijing in July? That was enough to cause people to link this to
some injustice. Is this an Internet rumor? Will the discussants
get into trouble? Is it safer to say, "It did not snow on July 30th
in Beijing"?

In May this year, I purchased a 2-liter
bottle of Fanta. When I got home, I saw that there was a dark foreign
substance inside. I called the telephone number printed on the
bottle. The receptionist was very helpful and forwarded me to External
Relations. At the time, nobody was there. Eventually, after a
few days, Coca Cola assigned someone to handle the case. They promised
to pay me 2 to 3 times in compensation, but in the form of products and not
money. I did not accept the offer because I had just purchased a
troubled product from them and I have not regained my confidence in their
brand. Therefore, I did not want to be compensated with more products.

After failing to get satisfaction from the
local Coca Cola representative, I tried to call the telephone number on the
official Coca Cola website. I called several times but nobody picked
up the telephone. I sent several emails to the address listed in the
official Coca Cola website. I drew no response on the first three
emails. On the fourth email, I attached the photographs of their Fanta
bottle and I said that this was my last email because I have lost
patience. Surprisingly, I received a telephone call from Manager S of
the local Coca Cola Company External Relations Department. After half
a hour of conversation, he invited me to come down to the office three days
later to discuss the resolution of the matter. The appointment would
be finalized on Monday morning (it was Friday when manager S called and
their offices were closed on weekends).

On Monday morning, I cleared up my schedule
to wait for the telephone call. At just past 8am, the telephone
rang. A man told me that Manager S is very busy for the next two days
and he will call again in a couple of days. He said,
"Sorry." So once again, I waited for three more days and
this was more than half a month after I purchased that bottle of Fanta.

Finally, I did arrive at the Coca Cola
company. Manager S took me on a tour of the small Coca Cola museum, he
explained the history of Coca Cola to me and he described certain public
interest programs that the company is developing. He told that I am
God to them (although I don't feel like I am God). But he said that
the end result will be the same as they will only offer compensation in the
form of products. Since he argued on the basis of the consumer
protection law, I appreciate that the Coca Cola Company was not a
law-breaking illegal merchant. Manager S said that the foreign
substance in the Fanta bottle would be analyzed to determine its nature ...

The matter is now closed and I have taken
the comensation in Coca Cola products. I have not received any answer
about the foreign substance. I am puzzled as to whether a company that
was only capable of adhering to consumer laws is fit to be the number one
brand in the world.

(The player is in combat against a
"mistress of corrupt official" clad in bikini)

On July 25, an online game <The
Incorruptible Warrior 清廉战士>
went live for testing. On the first day, more than 300 people
registered. But due to the media coverage, the game quickly drew broad
interest. At Sina.com alone, more than 100,000 downloads were
made. By July 28, the server was so congested that people could not
enter the game, which was originally designed for 500 or so people online at
the same time. The server has been shut down for upgrade.

What is so interesting about this game?
After all, the executable file is only 78M, the pictures are crude, the scenes
are spare, the copyright is suspect (because it borrows a great deal of
material from other games), the lone server is unstable and the financial
sponsor is the Chinese Communist Party Disciplinary Committee of the Haishu district
in Ningbo city.

The reason for the public interest is that
the hero of the game is an "honest and upright official" whose
assignment is to weed out corrupt officials, along with their children and
mistresses. Here 'weed out' does not 'putting in jail' -- it means using
weapons, magic and torture to kill them. There are 165 major characters
taken from Chinese history. On your side are the famous incorruptible officials such as
Hai Rui and Lord Bao. On the opposite side are the famous corrupt
officials such as Zhao Gao, Huo Shen and others who exhibit different degrees
of force (=corruption) as indicated by the gauge levels over their
heads. When you kill a corrupt official, you gain experience
points. For example, killing the notorious eunuch official Wei Zhongxian
from the Ming dynasty gains you 100
experience points. As you accumulate points, you increase your
powers for "Combatting corruption," "Moral character" and
"Degree of being corruption free" instead of the usual "life,"
"magic" and "strength" in other kinds of games. Your ultimate goal is to
reach <Honest and Corruption-Free Paradise>, where "the birds sing,
the flowers give out fragrance, the people are full of love and harmony, the
nation is prospering and the world is calm and peaceful."

Here are some netizen reviews:
- The characters and scenes are crude, perhaps even cruder than games such as
<Celestial Sword> ten
years ago.
- When the monsters show up, their names are always either "son of corrupt
official" or "daughter of corrupt official"
- Even if an official is corrupt, is it necessary to kill his children?
- Why do the "mistresses of corrupt officials" walk around in
bikinis? Why do they have to fight without clothes?
- There are options for adding values and purchasing equipment. Is this
one of the 'free' games that make money off the value-added services?
- A lot of the materials is taken from games such as <Romance of the Three
Kingdoms>, <Legend> and others. Does the fact that the
government made this game mean that they don't have to respect copyrights?

(The
Wall Street Journal) Game Over for a Corruption-Battling
Videogame in China. Loretta Chao and Juliet Ye. September 11,
2007.

It seemed like a good idea at
the time.

Two years ago, a group of
officials in the bustling second-tier Chinese city of Ningbo, near Shanghai,
took the initiative to battle government corruption at the grass-roots
level. They enlisted China's growing armies of online videogame players in
the fight.

Ningbo created an elaborate
online role-playing game called Incorruptible Warrior, in which players
wield weapons and supernatural powers to kill corrupt government officials,
their bikini-clad mistresses and even their families. Players could pick off
people with a single stroke or torture their quarry by striking repeated
blows to the face. They were guided by 165 characters drawn from Chinese
history or legend and shepherded through a virtual world corresponding to
real places in Ningbo.

So it was that, at the height of the humid
Shanghai summer, Wu Jiabin, a

22-year-old player, found
himself walking through virtual snow, sword in hand, hunting for any sign of
a corrupt official in centuries-old Chinese clothing. He had instructions
from Emperor Kangxi, who ruled China (for real) from 1661 to 1772:
"Turmoil is prevalent, with countless corrupted officials....To heal
the world, I order you to kill the major corrupted official, called He Shen,
who was extremely greedy, has the historic record for bribes in history and
committed significant crimes. I order you to get 20 heads of He Shen."

Incorruptible Warrior went
live in July -- for about three weeks -- before it was taken down. The
Ningbo government hasn't offered an explanation, though at one point it
posted a message on the game's main Web site citing technical difficulties.
Officials of China's Ministry of Culture -- which regulates the online-games
industry and normally would be the agency to shutter a game for excessive
violence or other violations -- said they had nothing to do with shutting
down Incorruptible Warrior. Other central government officials in Beijing
declined to comment or didn't respond to requests for an interview.

The game went live amid a
rash of high-level corruption cases -- from the July execution of the
nation's top drug watchdog for graft to last fall's disgrace of the Shanghai
Communist Party boss for mismanaging pension funds. It also sparked heated
debate on the Chinese Internet, which at 162 million users is now the
second-largest, following the U.S.

Still, some players and
industry analysts theorize that Incorruptible Warrior was less a victim of
Chinese politics than of shaky history, slow speeds and bad design.

"Lots of people laughed
at the graphics," observes Leon Zhang, a blogger from Nanjing.

Online gamers in China take
their virtual lives seriously, and "massive multiple-player online
role-playing game," or MMORPGs, are extremely popular. In one game
created by the Communist Youth League and Shanda Interactive Ltd., a leading
Chinese videogame company, players are supposed to be members of the Red
Army, fighting off Japanese invaders from 1937 to 1945.

Players spend an average of
28.2 Chinese yuan (about $3.75) a month on online game subscriptions and
virtual accessories, according to technology researcher BDA China Ltd., but
some have been known to spend thousands of yuan a month on the habit.
China's online gaming market totaled $821 million last year, up 78% from the
year before, according to BDA, which expects the market to expand 68% to
$1.38 billion this year.

At the same time, the central
government is pushing to build up something called the Online Game Fatigue
System, which seeks to shield young people from too much exposure to
Internet violence and pornography.

Despite its short life and
audience of only about 8,000 players, Incorruptible Warrior caused
considerable discussion among bloggers and forum posters in China. Some
applauded the idea of spreading the anticorruption message through a
pop-culture medium.

Shun Feng, a technology
blogger from Yangzhou and author of "New Theories on Blogging" and
"The Kingdom of Internet," said it was a "good try" by
the Ningbo government to get common people involved. "The common
practice in China is to leave the whole anticorruption thing to the
government, but the youngsters are the ones with the potential to become
corruptible politicians. ...That is why we need to educate them," said
Shun Feng, the blogger's pen name.

Those who opposed the game
warned it would be sending a misguided message to youth, who are spending an
ever-growing amount of time in front of the computer. One blogger on the
site Dragon Knight's Castle, with the online handle GZYZ, said "the
anticorruption theme is misleading the youth, who will suppose the war
against corruption is simply to kill them all."

Another blogger, Maoz,
posting on his own site, Confucius Says, mocked the alarm the game had
stirred up and reported an imaginary crime in which a schoolchild "from
XXX Primary School of Ningbo is found addicted to the free anticorruption
online game Incorruptible Warrior. He lost his mind on XXX date and stole in
the bureau chief XXX's house and killed him and his families cruely with a
pensil sharpener."

While the moral debate over
Incorruptible Warrior continues to play out on the blogs here, players'
disgust and derision at the game's technical flaws may be still keener.

Mr. Wu, who works at a
Shanghai game company, complained that Incorruptible Warrior was sluggish
and that he spent "five minutes killing one He Shen." Players say
Incorruptible Warrior was also riddled with Chinese-character mistakes and
mismatched historical facts. "He Shen was an official under Qianlong's
rule," Mr. Wu said. "If Qianlong is the grandson of Kangxi, how
could Kangxi know about He Shen?"

In the end, there were just
too many technical issues for the game to take off, said Liu Bin, an analyst
at BDA. "Peak concurrent users were over 1,000, but the game Web site
only supported 500," he said. By contrast, popular MMORPG games can
support thousands, and in some cases tens or hundreds of thousands, of
concurrent players.

Local news reports cite a
Ningbo social affairs official as having created Incorruptible Warrior
originally to play with his friends and, after getting positive feedback,
being given a budget of 10,000 Chinese yuan (about $1,200) by his
supervisors to recreate it as a public event. A medium-scale, professionally
created MMORPG can take one to three million yuan to develop. According to
the Chinese language media, the government is working on upgrading the
server for the game, but hasn't said when or whether Incorruptible Warrior
will be back online.